


Love of Dead Things I thru IX, A

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-09-30
Updated: 1999-09-30
Packaged: 2018-11-20 12:01:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11335263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atThe Basement, which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onThe Basement's collection profile.





	Love of Dead Things I thru IX, A

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

A Love of Dead Things I: Freeze by Te

A Love of Dead Things I: Freeze  
by Te  
6/98  
  
(with thanks to Alicia for title and beta, wotta gal she is...)

* * *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Freeze  
by Te  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

//Too late I'm too late again...//

Mulder pounded breathlessly into the abandoned penthouse apartment, snagging his trench on the splintered remains of the door his quarry had

//How did he *do* that?//

shattered on the way in. 

"Krycek, freeze! I won't hurt you!"

//much...//

He was rewarded with a snort of pure amusement from the younger man, impossible to interpret it otherwise even with only a view of his back. Alex was perched half-in, half-out of the window.

"I suppose the gun is merely a formality, then, not to be taken seriously?"

Mulder glanced at his SIG and tucked it away irritably. "Do we *ever* take them seriously?"

//Did I really just say that?//

Alex finally turned to face him, then, but did not move from the window. The moonlight was strong tonight, and the younger man's face was a mass of shadows and moon-struck marble. The eyes were wide and unreadable.

//As if they ever told me anything I could understand...//

A low chuckle, a smile of swords, and the agent wondered if holstering his gun had been very wise...

"Very true, Mulder... but I have places to be."

Without another word Alex leaped, and for a heart-stopping moment all Mulder could see was the flap of useless leather wings, denim rippling and shifting in a killing wind...

"Alex!"

The older man broke his paralysis and rushed for the window, barking his hips as he searched the ground far below for signs of carnage. Nothing.

//What the fuck?//

An impossibly strong hand grabbed him by the back of the neck and hauled him to the roof.

"Alex, eh?"

"Wha--"

Cold... those lips were cold and absurdly harder than all of his shameful imaginings and yes that must be why his nipples were suddenly brittle shards and he was shaking himself apart had to get closer find the heat so cold but when the arm slipped around his waist and brought him close there was no warmth to be had ice ice in his soul and it was right...

He felt a growl against his throat and waited, panting, for whatever truths would be revealed tonight. A wet, sharp tongue lapped chill sweat away before finding his ear.

"No, Mulder. Not tonight. Not from me."

And the arm was gone, and he was alone. 

 

* * *

 

A Love of Dead Things II: This Night  
by Te  
July 1998  
Disclaimers: Not mine, lawd, lawd, not mine.  
Spoilers: Nothing of note, though I do take the events of Terma into account.  
Ratings Note: R for poor language and some gnawing and pawing.   
Summary: Mulder goes looking for Alex, and is found by him.   
Author's Note: Another moment from my "A Love of Dead Things" universe. Takes place after the "Freeze" snippet, but before "The Idea of Forever," and "Time." It's not really necessary to read any of the other stories, but I'd sure be flattered if you did.  
Acknowledgments: Stop hiding, Sister Blue... Uberthanks go to my even-more-tireless-and-patient-than-usual Prime Beta Alicia. I'll find a way to make it up to you. Also to Dreamer for helping to translate Tespeak to the world and the title. Last, but not least, to Dawn Sharon, for stroking me to creativity, fearlessly daring to suggest that the first draft wasn't perfection, *and* coaxing me to take myself seriously. <g>

* * *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
This Night  
by Te  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's just the night in my veins,   
Making me crawl in the dust again...  
       --"Night In My Veins" by Pretenders

Mulder jittered and hummed in the anonymous rental. He didn't look out of place. Just another random man in the club's parking lot. Perhaps a little older, perhaps a little wealthier, but obviously there for only one reason.

//Why am I doing this?

//It's not like I'm accomplishing anything anywhere else...

//Does it matter?//

There had been a string of disappearances, though none so unusual as to require his presence in an official light. It was that sort of neighborhood, the men were in that profession, but Mulder had his

//needs//

suspicions. 

******

Three weeks ago there had been a rooftop, ten days ago a taunting 

//glimpse//

hint of presence outside his apartment. Four days ago, giddy with 

//nightmares... such a silly word for those... visions and wishes and why couldn't you hold me a little longer you bastard?//

sleep deprivation and the unbelievable cruelty of a belief confirmed, he'd laughed quietly to himself, taped a jaunty little 'A' to his window, and fallen asleep. 

And awakened to a bemused smile, and a cool, dry palm on his brow. He'd said,

"Krycek!"

and meant to be harsh, but, of course, inevitably, it didn't come out like that. Mulder remembered the rooftop again, wondered if once your breath is stolen you ever got it back. And then

******

Back in the car, in the present, in real time, Mulder was shaking his head. He knew his own tendency to over-dramatize events, and it was far, far too easy to do so with the man-shaped 

//temptation//

wickedness that was Alex. Alex. Alex. Too much like his heart, and not enough. And here he was, a 

//sleepless//

mere 96 hours from that moment and he was so very tired, and he was waiting for a man.

******

"You... called?" A playfully ironic glance at the window. The apartment was dark, the greys of his existence made greyer, vaguer in the absence of even a puddle of lamplight. And yet, the 

//mockery//

humor was clear.

Jangle-creak-thump and Krycek was in the armchair across from him and Mulder was sitting up and how did that happen? He raised a hand to his burning forehead. He didn't think he was sick, but in the absence of that hand's chill...

A glance and the bastard was checking his watch. No weapons in evidence. Smell of leather and complacency. His eyes narrowed. 

"What do you want, Mulder?"

He wished he could only hear the ostentatious weariness, ignore the tinge of pleading. A little selective deafness and the rage could grow. The old, familiar dance, why-did-you where were-you smack and it would begin again. 

Mulder's nape tingled as he locked eyes with his guest. 

//Oh yes, and how did you pull me, literally single-handed, to the roof?

//Maybe, this time, we can ask a question we don't already know the answer to?//

Mulder opened his mouth to speak, but the words weren't there. 

*****

The green of the digital dashboard clock was luminous in the darkness of the car. Brightly, cheerfully useless. There was no reason to study it so intensely, but there he was. 

Mulder ran a hand along the dark blue plastic, tapped long fingers in rough time to the *real* clock in his head, then aimed for counterpoint. 

tap <tick>

//And why were you outside my apartment *before* I called if you didn't want me, too?//

 tap <tick> tap

If he were to be completely honest with himself, Mulder would acknowledge that he'd begun the hunt the moment Alex

//left me cold and wanting//

<tick> tap

had left him on that rooftop. It was just one simple kiss, and then another, yet his mind kept returning to them again and again... Probably because he was making such an effort to avoid thinking about them.

tap <tick> tap

Of course, the alternatives weren't especially pleasant. He wondered if other people were ever actively worried that their bosses were, quite literally, out to get them. Brief smile in neon streaked gloom, but then he thought of Scully, who had made it quite clear that she was tired of patching up windmill slashes.

tap tap--

"Damn."

And the rhythm was lost. Really, it was long past time to muse on it, wallow, if necessary. The only way to get past 

//an obsession//

a problem like this one was to worry it to... death. He *had* been over-dramatizing, painting the kiss in broad strokes of passion,

//Wouldn't it have to be? Have we ever done anything that wasn't writ large?

//Every betrayal, every punch, every needless touch...//

the man himself carved and shaped in

*****

alabaster and shadows. They seemed in constant battle on the younger man's face and he was fascinated. He realized he was staring, but he had to know... something about war and desire and what would win... But then the flesh around those burning eyes crinkled and folded... so deeply it made Mulder wince in sympathy. It was impossible to tell himself that he was faced with anything but a man with a soul, and that wasn't what he wanted.

"What do you want from me, Mulder? Don't you know what I am?"

"What are you talking about, Krycek? I don't want anything from you."

And Krycek had simply stared, and it seemed, it did seem as though the younger man would just leave, walk away from whatever this was Mulder would not let himself name. But then, as though he had been dreaming, Alex was right there before him and holding his face... and smiling some more.

Caress of fingertips and he felt as though he were burning, as if he were pure flame in the wake of the merciless chill. And slow tracery slow and brittle down his cheek and down his throat... 

//Yes I'll toss my head back just so and if you take this opportunity to taste me well then I was only trying to search your eyes--//

... and then he'd taken his hand away, and Mulder was burning again... Oh, it was even worse after the touch was gone. 

//Do I need to be broken, then, before you'll do this for me?//

Again, he'd started to speak, but this time his mouth was claimed and it was just as 

//right//

soothing as he remembered and oh, please, won't you touch me? And then, there was no denying this memory, he had raised his hands and tried to pull the other man closer, but it was like trying to move bedrock.

//Am I allowed any dignity in this, at all?//

He'd moaned, and tried to push Krycek away instead. That, too, failed, and the kiss just went on and on, implacable, inevitable. A tiny freedom, smooth lips, hard and silken, parted and the older man darted his tongue inside.

An instant of pain, but it had seemed far more important to stay inside this chill, strangely dry place than soothe the hurt. He'd felt more than heard Krycek's growl, but suddenly he was pulled close and the force on his tongue and the cat rasp and then he was on the couch again. 

Dazed and staring and the younger man was no statue after all... He was panting and angry, color hi--

//*What* color?//

 And Mulder began to laugh, knots of tension he hadn't been aware of unraveling with each gust of mirth, leaving him a slack-limbed sprawl of flesh.

"You did that on purpose."

"Where's your follow-through, *Alex*?"

A bundling of the flesh around that teasing mouth, even more disturbing that anything could disturb that perfect smooth mask, marble to milk and all he'd had to do was provoke the other man to anger. Again, it had appeared as though he were leaving, movement so fast as to seem hallucination, though there had been nothing of clarity this night.

"What do I need to say to make you stay?"

And the stutterrush of hinted movement froze in a flap of black leather at his door.

"There's nothing you can say that would make me believe you want what I can give you, Mulder."

"Then why won't you take what *you* want?"

"How do you know I haven't already?"

And he was 

******

still alone in this car and the hour crept from time to give up to quarter past insanity and Mulder really had no guarantees that Alex would come this night, or that he'd allow Mulder to see him if he did.

//What am I doing here?//

Leg bouncing so long it seemed like stillness... until something bumped his shin. Mulder's heart gave a sickening lurch before he remembered the thermos of coffee he'd brought. 

Rip pour rip pour... another comforting mini-rhythm, perfect to distract him from the terribly monotonous turns of his own mind. Another packet of sugar and another until the dead 

//clothed//

boys were properly faceless again.

//They haven't been found, could be runaways...

//But they're not.// 

... and showers of white powder glittering redly in the glare from the club's sign didn't remind him of Alex at all.

Warm and sweet and he could swear he felt the caffeine working already, but it was oddly unsatisfying.

//Like everything else.//

 And his tongue had never stopped aching.

click-chock

And Alex was there with a gust of exhaust-tinged and deadly air, calm and perfect just to his right. Mulder poured the coffee back into the thermos, closed it tightly and glanced at the clock.

Half-past decency and he reached to place a hand on the younger man's shoulder. Not even a flinch. Alex still wouldn't look at him. Mulder squeezed and longed for a hand to hold. Brief twitch of lips the color of frosted petals and he was being grasped, awkwardly.

"You know I'm a killer."

"You were always a killer."

Dry husk of a chuckle. "But that was just my *job*..."

Mulder let a finger trace the hard bulge of muscle along the thumb. "And now it's your vocation. Your life."

The laughter was gone. "I'm not alive, Mulder." and then Alex was meeting his eyes, finally. "We... we might have had something, once. I used to dream... But if I took you the way you think you want me to, there'd be no going back. I can't--"

"You'd hesitate to kill me?"

A jerk, a moue of distaste. "Is that really what you want from me?"

Too many questions, too many lies and Mulder could feel the other man prepare to leave.

"Please, Alex--"

"You should let me leave now, Mulder." 

Silent plea in a caress, answered with a gasp and dark, humorless laughter. A pause.

"All right, there are only two other choices. I take you and I kill you, or I take you and we... we go on. Together.... At least until you've been trained. Christ, Mulder, why do you want this?"

The older man wanted to put his head in his hands, wanted to hold himself and rock, *something*. However, he was irrationally positive that the only thing keeping Alex in the car was his own shaky hand gripping Alex's as

//uselessly//

tightly as he could. Near silence for a while in the car, only his own harsh breath to take some of the weight away.

"Please, just tell me why."

//He wants this... just needs a reason...

//How can I give him a reason when I don't understand any of this?

//Does it matter?//

"Do you think you're the only one who wants answers? Maybe I can--"

"Don't talk in maybes, Mulder. There's no maybe here."

"I want you. I can't *not*... I want... I want it to be over. Isn't that enough?"

//It is... please believe me...//

Flare of pain as he was gripped far too tightly for a moment and then he was being spun, awkward tangle of elbows and knees, head slamming against the driver side window. Cool brush of skin against his jaw and he was ready, aching for it, but the lips only found his ear again.

"Last chance... I... I can't--" The voice was hoarse, needful as his own dreams and 

//Wait, wait, did we ever decide what you would do to me?

//Does it matter?//

Mulder locked his arms around the other man and held on. "Do it, Alex..."

And he did, sharp and deep and Mulder was moaning... yes, there it was, his breath was back for this and he cried out for the pain he was being torn open and apart by

pulse

Alex and with each lap each indecently hungry pull his soul was flowing snapshots flickering, shattering

pulse

so much slower now, easy with no choice left at all, good-bye good-bye and he was being gathered and held. It was blissful, this floating, this dance on the edge of 

//forever//

nothing, a feather in a gale. The voice at his ear was slow and lovely, but had never lost its edge of hunger. He couldn't quite pick the sounds apart into words, found himself dimly mystified that he could hear anything at all. Mulder decided that it was nonsense, and let himself drift and fall, slowly, slowly, against that column before him. A hand was nudging and pulling at the back of his skull, arranging him just so.

//Thank you, Alex... I... never thought you would but thank you...//

And he wanted to whisper and he thought he might whisper but in the end he allowed himself rest, images continuing to blink and then fade... flashes of light, screams and kisses, red hair and dark hair and there was a hand in his hair too fast through the strands for him to decide whether it carded or weaved and he was pressed closer no no and--

"Drink, damn you, Mulder--"

He wasn't going to do it, he'd squinted himself shut there was no way but when the first splash hit his lips it was a benediction.

pulse

//No...//

And when next he was back to something like himself, he was locked to Alex's throat, seamless and his body was somehow, somehow, becoming a match for Alex's, and he could curse the gearshift and

pulse

the universe was dragging itself back with each iron rush and Mulder longed to weep at the intrusion but it was too good, sweet and thick and he was a part of this, equal and powerful in his own right and when the light t-shirt under his fingers dared keep him from the cool, smooth skin he'd long known lay just there he tore it off with ease, treasuring the laughter and the gasps in equal measure as

//Mine//

only his due.

pulse

And he was full, wired like cocaine and brandy, nuzzling and lapping, tingling, flashing like glitter rubbing himself against Alex for more of *this* and he'd never felt so

//Alive?//

and the bright, raspy chuckles beneath him were hollow against the boom of a million doors being shut. The universe had woken him to show him... what?

Soft caress and he was being turned to gaze into Alex's eyes and there was something there that spoke of yes and want and forever...

The shudders passed quickly; the need spiraled up and up, an ache so exquisite as to demand indulgence, so basic as to deride the concept of satiety. Fingers in his hair again... tugging.

//I can allow this.//

And he hoped the night would never end, because sometimes the taste of death is a lot like love. 

****** 

 

* * *

 

A Love of Dead Things III: Never So Alive  
by Te  
8/98  
Disclaimers: Not mine, please baby baby baby please don't sue.  
Spoilers: None, really.   
Summary: Alex helps Mulder get used to a few things.   
Ratings Note: NC-17... Yup, you heard me.   
Author's Note: Yet another entry from the "A Love of Dead Things" universe, yet another AlternateStateOfConsciousness!Te Production. (Viridian suggested I label.)   
     Freeze  
     This Night  
     Never So Alive  
     The Idea of Forever  
     Time

This takes place a few hours after the events of This Night.  
Acknowledgments: So many, so many. To Dawn Sharon, Di, Viridian, and Alicia for asking all those friggin' *questions*, few to none of which I've actually answered, but what are ya gonna do? Also to Alicia, for her usual much-appreciated Beta Brutality. And, of course, to my own OBT, my sweet, dark Sister Blue. 

* * *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Never So Alive  
by Te  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"C'mon, I want to show you something."

Mulder was sprawled in the passenger seat of the rental, gazing blankly out the window, and still, so still.

//I'm dead.//

The thought had no power in the absence of light, of his father, of any comforting stereotype. Utterly impossible to accept it rationally, not with the strange machine-fur of blue velour chafing his cheek, the taste of Alex lingering in his mouth. 

A hand fell on his shoulder, and it gave the older man focus. 

//How long have we been sitting here?

//Where is here?//

Mulder blinked once, losing himself briefly in the simple smoothness of lid over cornea, brush of lashes against his face. Turning, his movements were fluid, awkward in speed and painlessness. No ache there, no pull there... Mulder cried out softly and the hand tightened.

"It's OK... it's all right. You'll get used to it---"

Shaking his head, flooded with the impossibly clear impression of seat and leather and skin and dash and pale, pale skin and--

//What have I done?//

He put his hands to his face, allowed himself to be pulled into Alex's embrace. Soft, husky words at his ear; Mulder was helpless to keep them from mutating into sense. Round sounds, need sounds, please-it's-all-right sounds... The older man buried his face against the throat; Alex automatically lifted his chin, made it easier and there was *something* coiling in his belly.... Mulder bit down hard. 

Too hard. The hand in his hair tightened reflexively as the flesh tore under his teeth... slow and cold and he didn't need this tried to pull back but it was so good...

"Ahh-- Mulder... Easy, you can have--"

... and there was really nothing like that voice, the shifts of a body in the too-small car, offering and he pulled out his fangs just to feel the tug of

//healing must be already//

flesh and lapping helplessly

//Would he let me kill him?//

and Alex was moaning, petting him, lost in his own pleasure and this was easier to cope with than the weakness and fear, better that it be blood and flesh and want, better to take Alex's surrender for granted and he was just as still and solid and--

Yanked into a kiss of something like triumph and yes he could do that, too. Lips and teeth and his own name in the caesura of shared, useless breath. Less broken than trailed off, a distracted speech, stuttering to a close with words falling randomly there, and there, and again on his mouth before pulling back. Mulder let himself fall into the ring of green around the younger man's eyes, briefly saw a tiny Mulder skid over the limpid black of the pupil to dance and dance--

"Come with me."

Snapped back again, looking down into the calm, serious face of his lover, Mulder nodded. 

Difficult to make it out of the car, tangled in each other as they were. Krycek hit the ground hard, chuckled at the sight of the older man trying to extricate himself from a surprisingly possessive seatbelt. 

"I think we could've done that better."

Mulder finally spun himself out of the little trap, closed his eyes as fast as he could but

//trees water bright bright moonlight trees water..//

not quite fast enough to avoid the startlingly clear images. He rocked on his heels, trying to push back the analysis. 

//Every image a work of art... I can't do this...//

Again, an embrace.

"I know what you're going through, Mulder." Constant, low-grade nuzzle over his cheek and ear, gesture of comfort just a little too urgent... "We all do this at first. I can help."

"Alex..."

//This is too much.

//Make it stop.

//I never wanted to need you.//

The younger man never stopped the animal brushings, occasionally planting a kiss, pulling Mulder out and out and stab at his throat too quick but exhilarating. 

"Will you let me help, Mulder?"

Mulder looked down at his flexing hands, stilled them in the fabric of his jeans.

//Too loose... I need to gain--

//Jesus, God...//

"What is it, Alex?"

"We're going swimming."

Slow blink and he didn't *want* to laugh but it was absurd.... He looked up to find Alex's eyes gleaming greyly in the moonlight, lips quirked and balanced on the edge of laughter. Impulse to shake his head again, rapidly quelled, and then Alex was shrugging out of his jacket, pulling himself out of his clothes. 

Mulder stared, hungry in too many ways to count. March air was clean this far from civilization, but the breeze only brought him Alex. Mulder reached out, laid his thumbs flat against dusky rose nipples standing in sharp relief to the milk-white chest. Arch and a gasp and a hand gripping his wrist, bringing it to cool, silky lips.

"Later, I promise." Nip and release. "Take your clothes off."

Oh, he was glad to be wearing the ratty old t-shirt, worn and soft and it felt good pulled taut against his skin and he could lean right into it...

More need sounds and before he could get the shirt fully off there was a hand tugging at the waistband of his jeans. Final luxurious sweep over face and hair and there was Alex, tugging him out and free in the 

//All that's left?//

night air. It was shocking to find himself hard, just another overly powerful sensation amid a glut of same. A small, dim effort and he could feel the slow pulse of 

//human?//

need differentiate itself from the prickle of his own body hair, the sharp tug of something undefinable on his every cell.

"Fuck later."

No preliminaries, Alex took him deep, groaning once around his length. A vision from his dreams; the hum made his knees tremble. Mulder braced himself on the iron-hard shoulders and thrust helplessly, grazing against a fang. Slow heartbeat to realize what would come next, another to feel the pain travel strangely, powerfully along his entire body and then Alex increased the force of the suction. Mulder heard himself sob, throw back his head and howl into the indigo and there had never, never been anything like this... 

When he could, when there was a release from the light behind and beyond his vision, he looked down. Alex was cleaning him with that cat-rasp tongue lovingly, thoroughly. Mulder ran a lightly trembling thumb along the corner of the younger man's mouth. Thick lashes fluttered, dipped and it was dry...

//Don't think...//

Moments of dazed bewilderment, inchoate fear too muted by everything else to do anything beyond silence the older man. Alex finally stood, pulled Mulder a little by the forearm to get him to step from the jeans puddled around his ankles. 

Virginia lakeshore mud, oozing shamelessly between his toes. Alex walked ahead, disappearing step by inexorable step into the water, muscles rippling, a statue in motion, right down to the mutilation of time. Deeper and deeper, dissonance to see the hard, trim waist disappearing in moonlight-black water when only his calves were being caressed. 

"Remember, Mulder, we don't need to breathe."

And then the younger man was gone with only a brief ripple to mark his passage and Mulder was following. A twinge at suppressing the reflex to breathe deep and he was under, the murk no real obstacle to his vision. Flash of white and down and down, nearly losing himself in the curious paradox of sensation. The pressure of increasing depth pushing hard against him, familiar but muted, changed by his new form. The water was a caress, warming, and the power was thrilling.

There was a slab of something... perhaps a wall stolen by some vicious storm. It was grey, pale green fronds of some unnameable plant skating along its edges. Mulder watched Alex wrap a few around his ankles, felt his heart beat once twice 

//almost normal...//

before slowing again. Alex looked up at him and smiled gently, beckoning.

Bemused, horny, frightened and then he was tied close to the younger man, who had relaxed his body, closed his eyes. Alex swayed with the current, beautiful and still, every boneless shift an invitation. Come with me, don't fight, We.... Mulder felt himself grow sleepy, let his arms relax and float up and up, hands straining against the tether of flesh, closed his eyes and let go.

It was almost sleep and it was almost sex, and it was nothing of himself. A dead thing swaying in a moment's perfection, never to decay. Perhaps they would always be there, reaching for moonlight, a mockery of ambition. 

Time and time and a hand on his arm. Alex was smiling again, tugging. The fish and the dust were lovely irrelevancies and Mulder could be slow about this, easy and calm, letting the water push him into the kiss at its own pace. Gentle and sealed and he could hear...

//Forever love you forever forever want touch feel this joy--

//Alex?//

... something in his soul, a bright truth lighting, starkly, all the things he'd left behind. He pushed it down, but it would always be there, now.

Mulder pulled away, but couldn't quite remove his hand from the smooth cheek. Alex leaned into the touch for a moment before turning to flick his tongue once along the palm. It was time to surface.

******  
End.  
******

 

* * *

 

A Love of Dead Things IV: The Idea of Forever  
by Te  
June/July 1998  
Disclaimers: If they were mine Sunday night television would be a fuck of a lot more interesting, now wouldn't it?  
Spoilers: Maybe, someday, when I write a story with a plot, there'll be spoilers. This is not that day. Oh fine, it takes place in some weird little AU post-Terma.   
Summary: Goodbyes.  
Rating's Note: R for some poor language, pretty boys doing... um... pretty things. But they're neat about it, they are.   
Author's Note: A challenge from Joyce, explained at the end. A moment from the "Time" universe, something like a prequel (No, not *the* prequel. I'll get to it. It's weird when a story insists on telling itself back-asswards.), though it's not necessary to read that one first... somewhat less violent.  
Acknowledgments: To Alicia (of course) for tireless beta suffering at my cruel, cruel hands and to Dreamerlea, for distracting me with praise. <g>  
Random Love: For my Sister Blue... because nothing matters other than forever.

* * *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The Idea of Forever  
by Te  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex eyed the hibachi doubtfully.

"You invited them to a barbecue?"

Mulder looked up at his companion of the past month, grinned with what Alex assumed was simple happiness. It was hard to say, really. It's not as though he'd ever seen a smile like that when they'd been partners, and these days...

"And you might want to tone down the smile for our guests, Mulder."

Lips folded slowly over sharp white teeth. It was clear that the older man hadn't gained complete confidence in his ability to avoid the fangs. Of course, as near as Alex could tell it never got precisely *easy,* but then he'd grown accustomed to healing with relative ease. 

"You don't like my smile?"

Alex walked over to the edge of the roof and arranged himself comfortably, straddling the ledge. Seven p.m. and the sun was just barely down. He felt an itch, but knew it was as much psychological as anything else. A denimed leg dangled freely; a sudden gust, redolent of cherry blossoms and car exhaust, prickled at his scalp. It was really quite safe, though sometimes he thought it was a shame about the hair. 

"Well?"

Turning in response to the gentle reminder, Alex saw Mulder balanced against one of the card tables they'd acquired for the evening. A sprawl more properly suited to a wall, or at least to something that wouldn't shatter with one strong blow. An optical illusion, of course. Mulder had to be supporting himself on that one heel.... Alex lost himself in admiration of the stillness of the lanky form for an endless moment before answering the amused quirk of the chestnut eyebrow.

"I love your smile... the way the streetlights gleam, the way your eyes crinkle just a bit with that predatory amusement, the way the fangs dig in just a little..."

Mulder snorted and flowed to his feet more fully before crossing the short distance between them. A chill and silky finger ran over Alex's temple, but he ignored it to watch the eyes. As usual the precise color was just beyond his ken, but sometimes they went gold.... The finger drifted down his cheek and without warning Alex snapped at it.

A late jerk from the older man, a tiny hiss as skin broke and tore in Alex's mouth. 

"Most people get past the rooting impulse by age three...."

Alex savored the thrum, the animal burn, catching the spare droplets and plunging for the wound... there... yes and the taste of the new flesh just enough time to...

"Alex..."

The wound was closing rapidly, trapping the tip of his tongue within Mulder's finger. An instant to thrill at the obscene intimacy before pulling his tongue out entirely. One last slow swipe before allowing the abused digit to slip free of its prison. Alex again relaxed against the pillar and watched Mulder examining his now perfectly pristine finger. The older man's focus was complete.

"Mulder."

"Hmm...?"

"You're still too slow. I shouldn't have been able to catch you

//that easily//

like that. You're still thinking too much. Not following your instincts."

"Is it always lessons with you, Alex?"

"Some Rules must be learned.... We no longer live in the world where the only thing of value was that glorious brain of yours. You have instincts, drives, whatever.... Old in ways we can't understand. We have the power to use them--"

"And if I'm... driven... by nothing more nor less than the need to feel you inside me? Wherever and with whatever you choose to penetrate me?"

"Then I'm a very lucky man, indeed, to have a lover who owns the entire racial memory of the first and last tribe of suicidal masochists." 

The gleeful abandon with which Mulder tossed back his head to laugh gave Alex mixed feelings. On the one hand it was reassurance, all the doubts and hesitations he'd had about joining Mulder to him proved meaningless.... But it also made him afraid. He knew that the Others wouldn't have approved this choice at all... that Mulder was in no condition to be alone in this world, in this state.

//He needs me.//

"But about the barbecue, Mulder?"

"What about it?"

//Deliberately obtuse, or did I do... something to that brain?//

"Mulder, why are you throwing a barbecue?"

"I thought letters would be too impersonal."

"I see. So you invited Skinner and Scully over here for a little chat over flaming meat?"

"*You* heard the answering machine. Neither one of them is taking my resignation all that well."

"No, I do see what you're saying, Mulder; it's just that I've got a few... concerns."

"Like what?"

"What did I tell you about fire?"

"Smoke is freedom, flame is mercy?"

The terror was instantaneous, unmanning. "Don't even jo--"

"I know, I know.... *I* wasn't planning to do the cooking, Alex. Haven't you always pictured Walt as a Tyrant of the Tongs?"

"Walt?"

"Dab of barbecue sauce on his chin, kiss-the-cook apron, manly scent of mesquite--"

Alex was on his feet and in the older man's space in an eyeblink, searching the bland face. Challenge and humor and more than a little just-plain-mean. 

"Mulder... don't tempt to me to violence."

"And when did you ever need me for that?"

Alex had to grin at that, and the look in the other man's eyes told him that the lesson about smiles, at least, had been learned. He let his hand drift through soft hair, tugging gently now and again. Mulder took the hint, and let his head loll to the side, eyes drooping half-shut so that only the glitter was visible. Alex rested his lips against the often-plundered neck and nuzzled, walking the fingers of his hand down and down the t-shirted chest.

Cool and hard and all his.... Alex lapped at the marble neck, musing that the taste would go unnoticed by any not of his kind... no sweat to salt his tongue, the musk far too subtle to make mere humans ache this way...

It was a good to have a love of dead things. A tiny sip was impossible to resist and he indulged, plunging within the sluggishly pulsing vein as he ran his hand over the hardness below. It was always the same, this moment... the ownership, the need... he'd denied himself for as long as he could but in the end they'd wound up just like this, wanting everything and taking it. The voice when it came was breathless and hoarse... he had drifted again.

"You keep this up and our guests may not survive the evening, Alex."

He pulled back with a low chuckle. "You were planning to let them live?"

"Alex."

"All right, all right.... I was... kidding."

"Of course you were. No deaths tonight. At least not *here*...."

"Oh, like it would be the first time. This building has seen plenty of carnage."

A hand gripped his jaw hard, and Alex smiled inside. Of course it wasn't spectacularly healthy to appreciate the almost-pain, but the blithe

//if not precisely well-adjusted//

Mulder of moments ago was distressing. It had all been too quick, the adjustment to their new life. Together. It wasn't a comfortable feeling, not yet. Especially with the odd way Mulder behaved most of the time.... This was better. Comforting and familiar.

"Not tonight, Alex. Not them."

But the voice was still far too gentle. Never in his wildest imaginings had there been this level of care from the older man. Oh, he'd always known that he would have him... there was even a Plan. But it was supposed to have been on *his* terms. 

//Idiot. You're bitching about having everything you want.//

Alex nuzzled into the palm, pulled his lips back just a little farther than was necessary for speech.

"I thought we went over the dangers of your getting too close to my mouth?"

The grip tightened and *there* was the gold... wild and glorious and he thought of the wolves that ran and burst through the snowdrifts all hunger and joy and oh yeah this is what I want...

... and he sucked in a gasp.

"OK, OK... Anything you want, Mulder. Besides, I'm not all that hungry."

The older man relaxed then, turned his grip to a light stroke along smooth, smooth cheeks and smirked a little. "I should hope not. We put a dent in Washington's gang pop--"

"Urban *youth* groups. Get it straight."

Mulder pushed at him in playful exasperation, went back to arranging the spices and tools. "In any case, next time *you* put on the dress and play victim."

Alex couldn't quite stifle the laugh, and the mock-scowl he received in response from the other man was shockingly, tearingly endearing. It stilled the laughter, but could do nothing to hold back the taunt. "Mul-derrrr... you *know* my thighs just don't measure up in a miniskirt. While *yours*--"

"What about my thighs?"

"Those lithe, delicate stems..."

"Oh, you sonofa..." 

The pounce sent him sprawling. As the maligned thighs pinned his hips, he saw the table with the meat on it tremble perilously close to disaster. Mulder had jarred it, if only a little. He really was getting better at this, and Alex was tempted to show him *just* how proud he was but the meat reminded him of his other concern.

"Mulder--"

"Submit, knave!"

"Knave? What the-- never mind. There's another problem."

Mulder sighed, rolled off, and settled himself on his back next to the other man. Alex couldn't help but savor the small moment of closeness, wondered what it would've been like to share heat...

"What *is* it, Alex?"

"What are you going to tell them when they ask why we're not eating?"

"What do you mean not eating.... That's *sirloin*!"

Alex blinked. Wasn't entirely sure whether to laugh or cry, settled for licking his lips and praying

//No, sometimes I *do* think there's a God, Alexei. Perhaps even many. They just enjoy a good laugh as much as the rest of us...//

for patience. "Mulder... when's the last time you ate something? Anything." He waited a moment for it to sink in before turning on his side and resting his hand on the older man's chest. 

"I just... I just thought we didn't... have to. No, I didn't. I didn't think." The tone was a marvel of dreamy bitterness.

"Hey... c'mon, Mulder. I *have* been keeping you busy."

Nothing but silence from the other man, and Alex cursed himself for bringing down the mood, wondered what he was thinking of.

"Are you going to miss the dim sum *that* much?"

Mulder snorted and ran a hand through his hair before dislodging Alex's hand with absentminded affection and sitting up. 

"Questionable epicurean tendencies aside, the idea of... forever..."

//You wanted this... fucking *stalked* me-- down keep it down//

Alex knelt up and bent to the other man's ear. "Yes, forever, Mulder. Think of what we *do* have... what we'll always have."

Pale, hard flesh brushed against his face. He knew how to make it give...

"Always, Alex?" Humor, hunger, and that purr of low grade arousal, making him *want*.

"Always."

He kissed Mulder then, a pleasure often forgotten in the frenzy of need. Alex felt the older man open to him and plunged inside. Oh, he could kiss Mulder for days, lose himself in the firmness of those lips, that cool, rough tongue, the threat...

//Oh, Christ.//

... deep into that bit of flesh between lower lip and gum a flash of pain so impossibly intense he couldn't even cry out. Pinned he was 

//Stake through the heart? Inconvenient as all hell. Try to avoid it.//

stuck right there and this was new, vicious and irresistible and jesus he can't possibly be getting much and then they went deep and he was sucking hard eyes closed can't you look at me when you're doing this but then they opened and it was dark black in moonlight and hands on his waist and it only hurt more when he pulled out slow and the lessons we learn... Iron in his mouth and something like fire, something like love.

Mulder was panting against his mouth, aborted nuzzles and Alex knew he wanted more.

//Everything... you can have everything....//

As he was moving to pull them both back down there came the sound of car doors slamming, voices too familiar to be shunted to the simple drone of the city night. The guests had arrived. A minute stiffening of the body against his told Alex that Mulder had heard them, too.

"They don't know I'm going to be here, do they?" "Would you like to explain this, Age-- Mulder?"

Alex had settled himself back on the ledge after the obligatory disarming process. He was reasonably sure he hadn't done anything particularly supernatural. It bothered him to have no idea what the older man's plans were, 

//if he has any...//

but he would willingly pretend to be human until Mulder said otherwise. He smirked at Scully, who looked more than willing to push him off the roof. Skinner was apparently ignoring him. Mulder looked... serene. 

"Just Mulder's fine, Walter. Can I call you Walter?"

Alex didn't even try to suppress his grin; this was shaping up to be a truly interesting evening. The A.D. was visibly struggling to retain a semblance of calm. "Mul--"

"Why did you resign? What the *hell* are you doing with Krycek? Where have you been? Do you know how long I've been trying to reach you?" Scully cut herself off abruptly, seemed to be trying to glare at both Alex and Mulder at the same time.

//And why a barbecue?//

Alex was trying very, very hard to giggle silently until he saw the look in Mulder's eyes. Hunted. He felt the muscles in his jaw loosen as the smile behind his face fell off. 

//Dammit. She always could do this....//

"That *is* what he invited you both here to discuss. Patience, Scully." Alex caught the A.D.'s glare, the slight tension of a pulled spring, with a small thrill of excitement. This could get ugly. 

//One could only hope...//

She whirled to face him.

//That's right, focus on me.//

 "I wasn't talking to you--"

"Scully, please! Let's... let's try to stay calm, all right? There's an explanation for this. All of it."

Skinner broke in. "You're asking a lot, Mulder. You disappear without a trace, not that that's anything new for you, invite us over here for a *barbecue*..."

//And you don't even have the fucking coals going, dammit, Mulder!

//C'mon, Fox, look at me... recognize the basic absurdity...//

"... Krycek here... Mulder, just tell us what's going on."

Scully was beginning to slip toward the table with the tools on it. Alex sunk a knife just in front of her feet. "I seem to recall saying something about patience..."

"And give me *one* good reason not to blow this SOB's head off." Scully was making a point of ignoring the blade at her feet; the rage was clearly as cool as she could make it.

Alex said nothing, merely made a show of relaxing against the ledge again. 

//This is your cue, Mulder...//

"You want a reason, Scully? How about the fact that you're no longer armed? Look, all I want to do is... explain what's going on. Please. Take a seat."

The giggles were back again, and when Alex caught the stricken look on Scully's face he nearly fell off the roof constraining himself.

Mulder had arranged the chairs in a rough square around what was supposed to be the dining table. He took a seat expectantly, and Alex joined him, after prudently removing anything resembling a weapon. They settled down to stare at the guests, who were currently eyeing the rickety foldout chairs with an air suggestive of everything from rage to bemusement. Skinner and Scully finally sat, and Mulder took that as his cue to produce a few chilled beers from the cooler. Alex beat down the urge to remind him that they didn't drink, either, and hoped for the best.

"Are you both ready to listen?"

Curt nods. Alex wondered about the tensile strength of the agents' jaws, idly turned over the idea of making them vampires, snorted as quietly as he could. Mulder scowled at him again, which sent him off into an internal debate as to whether or not to tell him, ever, how damned adorable that made him look. A rumble announced Skinner's impatience. How long had they been staring? A glance at Scully suggested too long. 

"All right. I'll answer your questions as best I can. I resigned because I can no longer fulfill my duties as an FBI agent. This is the first time I've been back here in several weeks, and I'm sorry that I haven't been in touch. It... it wasn't possible. I've been underground--"

"Learning to live with the rats?"

Mulder raised a hand, a gesture whose awkwardness made Alex bristle, and, seemingly, whose very existence made Scully angrier. He supposed he could understand... this had to be sudden. He brushed his hand along Mulder's flank surreptitiously, squeezed.

"Alex Krycek has information, resources, and abilities--"

"Why this, why now, Mulder?"

"Are you insane? He killed your father, betrayed you at every turn--"

"I never thought of you as a quitter."

Alex watched Mulder closely; these people had been his anchors, were asking perfectly logical questions, really. The high forehead was creasing, long fingers clutching the edge of the table. It occurred to Alex that he wouldn't mind hearing the answers himself.

"I don't quit, Skinner. But the fight... my life... pointless. Running in circles, jumping through hoops. Pick your cliche. Both of you know exactly what I mean. I'm tired of it. And now... now it's too late to go back. There are other ways."

"What's he done to you?"

"I don't like the sound of that 'too late;' you can come back. There are people you can talk to."

Mulder put his head in his hands, his body shaking. Scully chose then to make her own gesture of peace, some nod to friendship.

"Mulder, whatever it is... please, let us help you."

The shaking got worse, and Alex knew a moment of confusion. A flood of well-being tempered with bitterness, regret and desire...

//In a way, you will always be a part of us, Alexei.//

He didn't know if he would ever grow accustomed to the intermittent, unpredictable waves of *Mulder* that rocked him. He tried to push himself across the barrier, to share the simple joy he could take in knowing that it would be forever. It wasn't an obsession with the dark, not a

//sickness//

flaw in his soul... he couldn't help but see the potential, even if he didn't quite understand it all yet himself. But the silence was growing thick, and the wall was still there.

"Mulder--" Alex saw Skinner move to rise, but his focus was divided. Mulder was pulling at him, somehow, and he couldn't leave him, even if it was only a touch to his emotions, even though the older man wouldn't look at him. Without warning, Mulder threw his head back and laughed. A rich burble of sound that held nothing of their new lives, nothing of anything but the man himself. But it was loud. And it was strange. 

Their guests were confused, growing angry again, it was clear.

"Dammit, what *is* this?"

And then Mulder faced them, brushed an absent, welcome hand along Alex's shoulders, and smiled. Scully blinked, shook her head slightly. The move Walter had been making to stand ended with a shocked grunt as he settled back hard in his chair.

"You see now, don't you?"

"No..."

"Of course you don't, Scully. Skinner? Walter. I know you do." Mulder flowed to his feet; Alex followed, noting the grip his lover took on the A.D.'s forearm with acceptance, though he couldn't help but glare at his former supervisor over Mulder's shoulder.

"How?" The voice was far, far too old, and Alex could sense Mulder gentling his grin at last. 

"Does it matter?" He stood straight and made one last effort to reach for Scully. She was looking through him, and flinched from his touch. Mulder sighed, and Alex rested his hand at the base of the older man's spine. "It's over. I... I made my choice. Good-bye."

With that, he turned to face Alex and it was all the younger man could do not to confirm the

//victory//

truth for the agents in the most graphic way possible, but he held himself to grasping a slack hand before pulling them off the roof, and away.

******

Another anonymous apartment, one of many Alex had maintained in the past. Held now not for nostalgia, but in the hopes of luring old associates out of the woodwork. 

//Here I am, here I am...//

Mulder sat on the floor before the vaguely welcoming beige couch, apparently examining the pile of the carpet. Alex knelt beside him, cupped the older man's face and raised it.

"How are you?"

No answer for a long while, as Mulder slowly pulled himself from wherever he had gone before finally meeting Alex's eyes.

"I'm really not sure, Alex.... It wasn't supposed to be that way."

"Well... we did leave them the steaks. The evening might not be a complete loss..."

Briefly incredulous quirk of eyebrows; a quiet chuckle that felt like home. Alex bent to kiss the cool cheek. A promise, a plea. When long, gentle fingers cupped his head and made their will known he surrendered to them gladly. And silently decided never to question the price of his desires. 

End.

******  
The challenge? The divine Joyce wanted me to have the boys throw a barbecue. And there needed to be sauce licking. Oh well... Maybe Skinner and Scully had a nice long... chat? <g>

 

* * *

 

A Love of Dead Things V: And No Other  
by Te  
8/98  
Disclaimers: If I could, I would take them and hold them and squeeze them forever and ever and ever. And make them like it.   
Spoilers: Doubtful.  
Summary: Everything falls apart.   
Ratings Note: NC-17 for m/m sex and violence. Woo-hoo.  
Warnings: Dark. Read the summary again. One more time. There ya go. Vampires. Blood. In various combinations.   
Author's Note: Another moment from the "A Love of Dead Things" universe. Chronologically:  
     Freeze  
     This Night  
     Never So Alive  
     The Idea of Forever  
     And No Other  
     Time

Acknowledgments: To Viridian, and Dawn Sharon, in the hope that this answers a question or two. To my Sister Blue, in the hope that we do a little better than this. <g>   
Thanks: To Di, for translating Tespeak and dragging me out of the black pit of artistic suffering. To Dawn Sharon, for still more dragging. And, of course, to Alicia for the brutality I so desperately need. Any remaining mistakes, squicks, and/or ambiguities are entirely my own fault. 

* * *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
And No Other  
by Te  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

//We could we could...

//We could dance all night--//

Mulder was adrift in the darkness, sprawled along the poorly soundproofed back wall of the theater, chafing himself against the choreographed groans of the movie, against the scent of desperation and thick, thick blood. Alex was already in motion. Prowling the aisles...

//My killer.//

It was hard not to laugh; the slow wave of turned heads following his lover's progress was almost farcical. Alex was beautiful in the strobic flash of creamy thighs, moderately terrifying cocks; beautiful always. The familiar form was symmetrical again--he always wore the prosthesis for these outings. The wicked flash of the hook, now... That was new.

******

Thump of bass outside and below their apartment. Unseasonably warm this Virginia

//I don't want to stay here.

//*They* are here. Some of them. Give it a few more weeks...//

fall and the children were out and about. The music snapped his eyes open, dragged him out of rest, into the vague pain of just- past-sunset, into hunger. Alex was asleep, though the clear, pale forehead was creased in incipient irritation. There was still a subtle flush to his body, a memory of warmth. He had fed last night. 

It was all right to pet the fine flank, let his fingers wander in search of the artery. Gradually, the body gained a different sort of stillness as Alex awoke. Subtle shift and the lean form was a little closer, the legs spread a little wider, and he could watch and wait and there was the pulse he was waiting for, a shade of excitement.

Older than reason, younger than self and so so good, even before he dove in, just to know he could, knowing Alex would let him take it all...

//You give to make me crave you, I take to do the same.//

Today, though, he was only allowed a few moments to feed before the hand buried itself in his hair, tugged him closer to where Alex wanted him. Mulder pulled out at his own pace, allowed a thin trail of blood to mark his progress up the younger man's body. 

"So wasteful, beloved..."

Languid smile brushed pale cheek, smudging, daubing. "You have so much, Alex."

Alex scowled dramatically, rolled out from under the covers to sit on the edge of the bed, casually dislodging Mulder. 

"I didn't plan on feeding again tonight."

//No one interesting left to kill?//

It was just a game, but Mulder was abruptly irritable. Six months of this strange model of domesticity, of being told what he could and could not do...

Not surprisingly, Mulder could see Alex's shoulders stiffen, despite the fact he hadn't said a word. He was growing accustomed to the younger man's occasional bouts of empathy... though they weren't any less irritating because of that familiarity. 

"We haven't hunted together for weeks, Mulder..." There was a hint of a plea in the soft words.

"We don't care for the same grounds."

Alex let himself fall back on the rumpled bed and the older man couldn't help but take in the spare and subtle curves of his form, reach out to dabble in the drying blood. 

//Instinct...?//

Small, meaningless patterns on flesh that didn't quite jump under the brush of his fingertips.... He had taken too much. Mulder lapped his fingers clean before gazing at the calmly wicked face.

"Come out with me tonight."

"Where, Alex?"

And the other man was up and moving, that snakelike strike of a kiss that never failed to make him gasp, never failed to leave one or both of them wounded again, if only briefly. 

"New grounds..."

******

Mulder watched the younger man pause, considering, between two of the middle rows. Voices were raised a little too loudly for this game, hope and want, shocked arousal from the chosen one. Mulder drifted closer, knowing he was only a flicker among shadows, settled in on the other side of

"Meet Tim, Mulder."

//Is this the way it has to be, tonight?//

"H-hey... you two know each other? That's cool. That's cool."

Tim turned away from Alex to face him, smile a little nervously.

"So, uh... did you guys want a threesome? Want me to suck you..."

The words trailed off as Alex trailed the ice-cold hook along the man's neck. It made him jerk, twist interestingly and gasp. Shift of the orgiasts onscreen and there was a wash of false silver across Tim's hair. Freshly washed--obviously not a regular. Alex had worked his hand over to cup the bulge in the man's pants, slipped him out and began to stroke gently. Mulder watched, fascinated, as sweat broke out over the thin upper lip. The hook was still against Tim's nape. 

"Unnh..."

Mulder dove in and lapped away the sweat... just as thin and salty as any junk food.

"I don't know about this kinky s-stuff."

Whiskey chuckle from Alex and Mulder pulled away, ran a thumb over the trembling mouth. Alex leaned in, whispered in Tim's ear.

"I know."

Slash across the carotid and Mulder was there and ready, Alex catching the breathy scream with a kiss as he continued to stroke with brutal efficiency. Tim was a glyph of tortured passion, arching into Alex's hand even as his struggles to get away from Mulder weakened.

Mulder fought the urge to settle in, knew they were already drawing too much attention. No casual observer could call this quick and dirty, no careful one call it anything but what it was. He wanted to finish it quickly, blunt the hunger for another few days, get back home to the quiet. Alex, however, had other ideas. 

Just as the heartbeat began slowing, far, far too soon, his prize was ripped away. Sickening crack hidden by the snap of black leather on the screen, ragdoll slumped in the seat. This wasn't the way it went.

"What... what ever happened to "discretion above all things," Alex?" The frustration in his voice was maddening. 

"Good news, Mulder. We're leaving."

Flash of guilt, remembrance made the older man's voice hoarse. "I'm not done, yet... I have--"

"Conspiracies to uncover, former employers of mine to kill, I know..."

//Am I a joke to you?

//Am I just kidding myself?// "... done *here*. I got word just before I came in this morning: Better pickings to the North. You were already asleep." Affectionate slide of hook over his cheek. Harder than the hand, true, but still a little warmer. Mulder leaned into the touch on a whim to make the younger man smile, perhaps lose some of that smug control. When it came again, the voice was a little more needful, a little easier to take. "They're on the run, Mulder. We've been... successful."

"And this?"

Alex began to lean close, glared at the obstacle irritably for a moment before throwing it to the floor. Lapping kisses to remove all trace of Tim from the older man's face, an expansive gesture at the rest of the audience. "This.... This is your farewell party."

******

"Who do you want, Mulder?" The voice was at his ear, and it hurt. Everything hurt. He had awoken to darkness broken only by the pale flesh driving above him, groin to groin; his entire body was aflame.

//My new life?//

Rough tongue in his ear and he hadn't been this sensitive since middle school, couldn't stop arching up to meet the thrusts of his new lover. 

"Tell me who.... Anyone you want."

"What... What do you mean?" Rock hard and pulling pulling... he felt burnt, cut open and husked. The only blood in his body was pooled in his genitals and nipples, the rest was cold and aching for...

//Oh, Jesus...//

Alex paused then, positioned himself to look into the older man's eyes, a little humor, a little question, hunger to match his own. 

"I don't know, Alex..."

//Don't make me choose.//

"I have some ideas." Gentle smile. Impossible to darken it further than some benign roguishness. "Tonight we'll follow my lead, all right?"

He could smell the younger man. Nothing like the intriguing musk that night in the cell

//And what if we'd taken it further, then?//

but still lovely. He could almost tell himself his reaction was solely due to the new drives ruling his body, even allowing himself a moment to drift, wondering how long it would take his baser nature to be subsumed *this* time.... But then the scent increased. Alex had slashed his own chest, was slathering his fingers in the wound. There was a blink of time, a moment of feeling so pure as to be undefinable. Rage and lust, melted and tempered, merged and he was on the younger man, stabbing at the slash with his tongue, doing his best to gnaw it wider with Alex's silent approval.

Everything he was physically was trying to tell him just how right this was, from the involuntary curl and spike of his tongue, to the thighs that widened to take Alex's slick fingers. 

"Jesus, you have no idea how long I've wanted this..."

Some complicated spin, the distinct impression that this would've been painful once, and he was straddling the younger man. The move had ripped him away from the wound, which was closing itself rapidly without his attentions. Mulder nearly mewled.

"Shh, shh, this'll make it better. Focus on this, Mulder..."

Twist of clever fingers inside and it was almost ridiculous that something so

//human//

simple could still affect him this way. He felt himself arching, bucking shamelessly and there was almost a drive to let it all

//merge//

flow through him and for just a moment he was snapped back into the *need*, every cell howling for blood and yes he could think that now but Alex was adding another finger and it was all one and all right, just fine to be thirst, to let your body make all the demands necessary. 

Alex was bright, gleaming, eyes flickering ceaselessly over his body, its shifts and rolls. Mulder let his own gaze fall pointedly to Alex's cock.

"You want this?"

Mulder tore his own wrist open. Alex hissed, thrust into the stream. "No more teases." The older man felt another wave of want hit him, confusing in its difference and intensity, but then Alex was removing his hand.... Briefly, terrifyingly, Mulder felt his hand ache to dart for the flexing wrist, grasp and hold it right there. Forever. Time shuddered for Mulder, blink and he was bereft, gasp and he was guiding himself to Alex's cock. Kiss of slick but tacking flesh, too cool but needed, slow rock to be joined.

"Alex--"

"Do it, I want to watch you--"

Mulder rode him at his own pace, surrounded by iron and sharp little cries, filthy with himself and his lover. There was no redemption in this, just the useless coda to a drama that had already ended. Irresistible self-indulgence and Mulder wanted, desperately, to weep for it but there was a slick-sticky fist on his cock, and a husky voice calling his name and there was nothing to do but surrender, nothing to be but pleasured.

******

Mulder stared at Alex for a long moment, helpless to avoid seeing *precisely* how they'd gotten here... just what he'd allowed himself to become. The sex had only left him hungrier, malleable. Alex had only to point at the first one, whisper vaguely of crimes,

//I would've killed anyone at that point...//

and he had attacked. 

//This is all I have, now.//

He watched the frown gather itself behind the too-observant olive eyes. Waited for the pain. 

//I will indulge myself in everything, Alex. Everything.//

"If this is my party..."

"Yes?"

//So eager...//

"I want to choose my own favors." He smiled then, lush and wicked, and Alex's reaction was sweetly, predictably immediate.

"Anything you want, Mulder."

******  
End.  
******

Partially inspired by the song "Siamese Twins" by The Cure... thanks for that, too, Viridian. 

 

* * *

 

A Love of Dead Things VI: Evil Eye  
by Te  
August/September 1998  
Disclaimers: All hail CC, for without his vision I would have nothing to corrupt.  
Spoilers: Nope.  
Summary: A night in the approximation of life.  
Ratings Note/Warnings: Strong R for language, sexual content, violence, and sick humor. Very, very wrong.   
Author's Note: Another moment from my _A Love of Dead Things_ universe. In chronological order:  
     Freeze  
     This Night  
     Never So Alive  
     The Idea of Forever  
     And No Other  
     Evil Eye  
     Time

Acknowledgments: Many thanks go to Alicia, Dawn Sharon, Kass, Viridian, Maria M., Pretty Pretty Pares, Dreamer, and everyone else who put up with my bitching and moaning before, during, and after this piece was written. And, of course, to my sweetness and dark, my Sister Blue. Also to Rye, Rachel, and Dawn Sharon for fine beta.  
Feedback: Please Please Please. I have no shame. None. 

* * *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Evil Eye  
by Te  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Did you ever like a bad dream?  
              --"Thorn In My Pride" by Black Crowes

//You're kidding yourself, Alexei.

//And aren't I allowed? At this point?//

Alex propped himself against the headboard of their bed, watching Mulder at the mirror, and wrinkling his nose a bit at the smell of paint that lingered in the new house. It had been months since the job was done, but...

"Mulder, where did we stash the box with all the candles?"

"Anyone ever punish you for your obsession with atmosphere?" The jibe came quickly -- and Mulder never turned from the mirror -- but there was humor in the flat tones.

"Not nearly often enough... but where--"

"Basement maybe, next to the coffins?"

Alex snorted, flowed off the bed. His lover in a playful mood was something to be taken advantage of, these days. "Mulder, Mulder... you *know* that's the first place the angry villagers look." He sidled up behind the other man, slid his arm around the pale, trim waist. "The coffins are in the shed."

"We have a shed?"

The younger man chuckled into the hollow between neck and shoulder, then nestled himself a little closer, not coincidentally getting a better view at the source of the older man's fascination. Mulder was holding out an arm, prodding the inside of his elbow with three fingers.

"What is it?"

"The veins, Alex..."

The younger man ran his hand through the sparse hair on Mulder's abdomen, made fine by the change, each curve a scimitar of silk. 

//Never get tired of this, of you...//

"What about the veins?" A nuzzle of muted want and the older man leaned into the touch, but never stopped prodding. Alex sighed and abandoned the much beloved belly for the hard, blue ropes just under the deceptively translucent flesh. 

"Have you noticed how rigid they get when we go without... feeding for a while?"

"Yes..." 

"What would happen if we just... stopped?"

Alex slipped off the other man, nudged him a bit to turn him away from the mirror. A hand on the shoulder turned into a small, mindless caress of thumb to throat. 

"Mulder."

It was almost morbid to watch now; the flat pads of fingers stroking and pinching along the forearm constantly, constantly, only the barest blush to mark abraded skin, but even that much...

"Mulder."

The older man abruptly raised his head to face him, not bothering to flip back the dark and mildly dusty fall of hair. Nothing at all in those eyes but vaguely dazed humor.... Alex supposed it could be worse.

"Do you know, Alex? What would happen?" No sense of urgency in the familiar voice, not much of anything, really.

Alex moved a little closer, obliterating the rather disturbing lack of focus by limiting his vision to the dry and slightly parted lips. "No, I don't. I haven't allowed myself to go hungry for very long since Hong Kong..." Such an expressive mouth... twisted this time by a slight frown. It was, perhaps, cruel to remind Mulder of Before. "But I suppose that should we actually *try* to starve ourselves..."

//How long since you've hunted, beloved?//

"They might harden to the point of... of... Hell, Mulder, I have no fucking clue. Don't make me lie to you."

Mulder chuckled a bit and nuzzled the younger man back up to look in his eyes. Clearer now. "No Rule for this?"

"A certain measure of common sense tends to be expected." Alex waited for the inevitable bit of self-deprecation to begin spilling out of the older man's mouth, used the opportunity to steal a kiss. Even now, Mulder was sometimes clumsy, hesitant with his caresses. He didn't care to wonder why, often, just took the opportunity to kiss him more insistently, long and long past the time when oxygen would have been a concern. Given time, it was always perfect.

One night Alex had determined to see how long they could kiss -- just kiss -- before Mulder rebelled. They had been living in D.C. at the time and the sky was flush with the sunset... An expanse of exertion at the passing of another day. Alex liked to start early, and Mulder had agreed to hunt with him. Too-crowded alleyways and the occasional flash of true obscenity in the midst of all the banalities. Tempting, that, but not as much as watching Mulder prowl.

Some nights, like that one, Mulder would just... let go, it seemed. Find himself black jeans and tailored leather --neater than Alex's own -- and settle himself at Alex's side. They would walk together in silence, but Alex would watch. The brief flare of a nostril, the slick sheen of want over the unclassifiable eyes. When Mulder hunted, when he let Alex see, there was always a moment when the older man would freeze. If Alex moved a little closer, if it was allowed, he could feel the thrum. The twitch of a helpless smile. Mulder only let himself revel in the hunger when he knew it would be satisfied.

It was an attitude Alex understood. That night it was just some random pickpocket, slender clever fingers making off with three separate wallets while they watched. The flak jacket had to be heavy with other people's money. A glance to the side. Mulder was poised and waiting. Alex took in the street, deserted save for a clutch of tired looking whores and two cars waiting at the intersection. A count of eight and the cars were in motion.

"Now, Mulder..."

Grey green glance, suggestion of a grin, and the pickpocket was against the wall, one leg flailing past Mulder, one arm clutching at crumbling mortar. There was a series of sharp clicks as the buttons on Mulder's jeans collided with the victim's. That was one of the benefits of letting Mulder go for long periods of time without hunting... watching him lose it for the taste of blood and a pretty boy -- those fine, slim hips snapping mindlessly. The boy's pelvis would most probably be crushed, but...

Dry stick crack and it was over, Mulder holding the boy upright by the slackened face and staring.... Alex slipped his arm around the other man, nudged Mulder to face him and began to lap him clean...

//Another reason to have a... partner, Alexei. No, no, not here... but you'll forgive me if I just take a little taste, yes?//

... slipping his head around to the other side when he was done. Mulder nuzzled into the caress, but remained focused on the dead boy until Alex pulled away. Brief sound of distress. 

"Dumpster, Mulder... come on, it'll be days before the next pick up. The rats'll do our job for us."

Unreadable glance and Mulder set off into the alleyway, just another shadow in the dimness, tossed the body into the dumpster. A bank shot that had the added effect of shutting the thing. 

"Show off."

"Another life, Alex... I coulda been a star..." Dreamily self- mocking smile and elaborate free throw pose. Too sexy for words. Alex backed him against the cool green metal and kissed him, deeply and endlessly, not backing off, not taking any more. It had lasted for hours, Mulder's arms around him in casual affection, Alex occasionally surfacing enough to wonder at the *ease* of the moment before slipping down again with a swipe of the tongue, a softly teasing nip. 

He didn't pull away until he felt the first itch of dawn on the back of his neck. And Mulder had smiled, lazily, and run a hand down the side of his face....

Alex slipped back into the present at the feel of Mulder's fangs beginning to dig -- just that slightest bit harder than was innocent --into his lip. He pulled off.

Flash of need and he ran a thumb over Mulder's mouth. Perfect forever, now. It was almost a shame. Alex could *see* the other man restraining himself from biting at his hand. 

"Come out with me tonight?"

Briefly unpleasant twist. "I don't feel like--"

//Of course you don't...//

"I know.... I just want to go shopping."

A snort and Mulder was nudging him up again to look in his eyes. He refused to be baited, though, brushing brief, frustrating kisses against the older man's mouth instead. The only way to get Mulder into something was to let it be, at least on some level, his own idea.

"OK, OK, I give..." Mulder knew Alex's game just as well as Alex played it, of course. "Why are we going shopping?"

Alex couldn't keep himself from grinning at the immediate capitulation, or from hissing a little when Mulder pulled him closer and began to burrow into his throat. 

"Why, Alex?" Muffled by his own flesh. Alex felt the lips pull back a bit... dangerous mood, then. Good mood. 

"We... we need new curtains." 

Mulder froze mid-nuzzle. Tickling graze of eyelashes against his throat as the other man indulged in a slow blink.

"Curtains."

"Yes. I'm thinking a nice, thick velvet set."

Another blink, even slower this time. The sensation made Alex squirm and by the immediate way Mulder took advantage of the motion with a grind of his hips he had to assume that was the plan.

"We really do need to talk about the atmosphere thing, Alex."

Alex ran his fingers through Mulder's hair, pulled him up and away from his throat. Not without some difficulty --Mulder was clearly hungry -- but the result was the same. Eye to eye and much too close not to move closer still. To step in and kiss until *just* before Mulder's hands begin to play with the waistband of Alex's pajama bottoms, until just before he forgets the plan altogether to lay himself out for Mulder, instead. To be the victim for tonight.

//No, no, no.//

Alex pulled off entirely save for his hand on Mulder's shoulder. It was both the comfort of unbroken caress and a necessary stop. 

"We're going to the mall, we're buying curtains, we're..."

//going to find someone for you to *eat*, dammit//

"We're coming home, and then we're having large amounts of sex." Alex watched Mulder's face, but if the other man had caught his hesitation there was no outward sign.

"I suppose we'll have to put clothes on." 

Alex nodded gravely. Mulder heaved a truly impressive sigh. 

******

"You know, we're not going to find what you like here, Alex."

"We're not even out of the car and you're *already* --"

"I'm just pointing out that you can't find the really *good* curtains at a mall. You need an upscale furniture store for that."

Alex paused, leaned back into the buttery caress of the leather seat. Tapped out something he couldn't quite remember on the steering wheel. Flexed experimentally -- it had been a while since he'd last worn the prosthetic --and counted to ten. 

"It was a thirty mile drive to get here."

"Yes...?"

Alex bit his lip, got rid of the blood with a vicious swipe of the tongue. Not before he felt Mulder shifting a bit toward him, though. "You couldn't point that out somewhere along the way?" It was an effort to keep his voice calm.

Mulder turned to face him, then, and smiled with near radiance. It was abruptly difficult to remember why he was angry. "It's been a long time since we've taken a drive..."

//It's been a long time for a lot of things... but I'll take that on face value.//

Alex let himself grin, reached out to stroke the attractively unkempt hair. 

"All right, Mulder. We won't be able to get the sort of atmosphere-improving window treatments--"

A snort from the passenger seat.

Alex grinned. "What, I'm not allowed to know what they're called?"

Dry voice. "Don't mind me, Alex, I'm just having a surreal moment."

Alex dove across the seat and slammed Mulder against the door. Hovered near the slightly parted lips for one slow heartbeat before catching a nipple through Mulder's t-shirt and pulling hard enough to make him moan. Settled back in his own seat, wondered briefly how much he'd be allowed to push, tonight. "You know what you're supposed to do when you have one of those, don't you?"

"Stop killing college kids with too many hallucinogens in their systems?"

Alex giggled. "Whose idea was it to crash that party, *anyway*?"

Mulder's mouth twitched and Alex got the distinct impression he would be blushing if he could. "Well, there was all that singing, and the bonfire--"

"And the pickled children, yes." Alex shut off the engine and stepped out of the car. Opening Mulder's door earned him a wry look, but he simply stepped back a little to allow the other man room to stand. "But I was going to tell you the best method to cope with a surreal moment... though I must say I'd think you, of all people, would know this already."

An eyebrow quirk and Alex got up on tiptoe to run his tongue over it. Felt Mulder shiver a bit.

"Tell me anyway." Low voice. Alex decided to pick up the first suitably dark and cheerless set he came across.

"You just sit back and enjoy it, Mulder. After all, how often does the outside world match your own mind?"

Mulder grabbed him by the crotch and squeezed nowhere near hard enough. "You may have a point, Alex." He smiled with shameless malevolence and released him to walk toward the mall entrance. 

******

They hadn't been inside for five minutes before Alex could feel Mulder itching to kill. The place was packed -- early winter evening and hundreds upon hundreds of people from the surrounding counties had come here directly from work. Their days were ending, and they smelled of light sweat and fatigue. Fatigue doesn't smell all that different from, say, world- weariness. Life weariness.

Every few seconds Mulder pulled in a long, indulgent breath. He was drawing stares. Alex began to wonder if he was like this on his own...

"... our best bet here, Alex."

Snapped back to attention and Alex realized he was staring just as obviously as Mulder. Though his focus was narrower. He smiled ruefully to himself. 

"Hmmm...?"

Mulder grinned at him. "I *said*, J.C. Penney's is probably our best bet here."

Alex shuddered. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm *sure*. Tsk. Too bourgeois?"

"Simple practicality, Mulder. If the curtains were to suddenly disintegrate at oh, say, high *noon* we'd have problems." 

Dark, brief chuckle from his right. "Gee, I don't know.... you've been looking a little pale just lately..."

Alex shook his head and steered them into the department store. As expected it was too bright, too loud, and crowded besides. He could feel Mulder flexing a bit under his hand. This had to be getting hard. Alex restrained himself from teasing and moved them as quickly and unobtrusively as possible to the Home Furnishings department.

******

Jaime was approximately five feet, eight inches tall. Jaime was blonder than an Aryan Nation advertisement. Jaime had spent the last seventeen minutes discussing balloon valances, panels, tiebacks, swags, and other things that managed to be obscure, vaguely frightening, and terribly boring all at the same time. Seventeen minutes in which Alex had calmly and clearly pointed out they were there for "heavy," "dark," and "38 x 60" any number of times. This one would die. 

Mulder had long since perched on the cashier's table. The sort of pose that dared someone, anyone, to say something while warning people exactly what a bad idea that would be. As near as Alex could tell, the older man's vision had been fixed on the back of Jaime's neck for the past twelve minutes. He remembered to blink now and again, so Alex couldn't really fault the behavior. Especially since it was clearly beginning to rattle the little curtain Nazi. 

"So... so y-y-you see there are any number of options available to f-fit out your new h-h-home, gentlemen. You don't *really* want the whole thing to be so... so *dark*, do you?"

Alex blinked at him, shot a glance at Mulder, who immediately climbed to a stand just behind Jaime. And continued to stare at the back of his neck. "Yes. We do."

Jaime swallowed once. "We... we r-really d-don't have much in the sort of..." Another swallow. "S-sort of style you... you gentlemen seem to want." 

Mulder leaned in a little closer, brought his lips to a point approximately four millimeters from Jaime's ear. He was only a few inches taller than the salesman, but someone had clearly taught Mulder how to loom at some point. "Why don't you show us what you *do* have..." He reached around to pluck at the name-tag. "Jaime?"

"I-I-I think we have s-some burgundy..."

Alex winced. "How about a nice forest green?"

Mulder looked at him once before turning his attention back to Jaime's throat. 

"G-g-gentlemen... I'm-- ah, that is t-to say..."

"Yes?"

"I'll have to check the storeroom!" The sudden shout made Mulder draw back a little, eyes narrowing. Jaime slipped from between them immediately. "Y-y-you just wait here, OK? OK. I'll be b-b-back as soon as possible!"

And he was scuttling away. Mulder started to follow and Alex had to physically restrain him. "They'll find the body too quickly." 

Momentary snarl and Mulder was snatching his arm away, moving again to his former perch. He shook himself once, gripped his own arms, and rocked for a full minute before visibly pulling himself back under control. Mulder caught his eye, then, and, given their other behavior this night, Alex couldn't find it in himself to resist the familiar tug of need. Mulder opened his legs invitingly and Alex moved in close, resting his head on the other man's chest and settling in to wait. 

It would probably only take Jaime a half-hour or so to recover.

******

"Alex."

"Hmmm...?" There was a small but apparently quite dominant part of Alex's mind that was convinced he could get some unspecified value of *more*. All he had to do was nuzzle into Mulder as far as possible. To that end, he found himself halfway under the other man's lapel when Mulder woke him up. Jaime was taking a very long time. Alex shook it off and pulled out from under the jacket to find Mulder looking... merry. "What's up?"

"What would you do if you saw a crime being committed?"

"Hmmm... Depends on the crime, the criminal, the victim, the situation --"

"Style, originality...?"

Alex grinned. "Something like that. Why?"

"Oh, no reason."

Alex settled back against Mulder, felt a hand shape itself to the back of his head. And then the world exploded. 

At the very least, it seemed that way. One minute he was trying to decide whether he could still smell the curious blend of expensive coffee and clove cigarettes that marked the last victim he could remember Mulder taking on the other man. The next he was hurtling unpleasantly through the air -- still against Mulder -- until they were forcibly stopped by a wall. 

He knew this sensation. Bomb. It was smoky and hot and he didn't want to turn around because he could *hear* the fire eating away at the draperies behind him, and when he looked into Mulder's face -- peppered with bits of cement but healing -- he could see the flames dancing on the surface of his eyes. Mulder was smiling. 

"Fuck."

It seemed the only thing to say. He hauled Mulder up forcibly and tried to remember which way was *out*, moving quickly and purposefully because he remembered quite well what it was like to burn...

He remembered the old man gasping for air, lifted clear off the floor and struggling. He remembered the curl of his own lip as his fingers slipped on the crepey flesh of the old man's neck. He remembered the tiny sting at his side. Looking down to find a cigarette pressed into his torso. 

Admirable really. The old bastard -- the name he'd heard the most, for whatever it was worth, was Rodbell --couldn't have been getting much oxygen at that point. Alex had watched with curiosity as the butt burned through his thin t-shirt, wondered what his flesh would smell like. 

The flare of agony was a shock. Worse than Peskow's little lessons, worse than the forest. Fascination quickly turned to horror as actual flames began to lick and char over his torso. Rodbell had been tossed aside and lost. Again. By the time he'd sprayed himself down with the fire extinguisher there were parts of him... missing. He'd grown careless in his killings over the next several weeks. Always hungry, always hurting. 

It hadn't taken long for Mulder to find him. He supposed that everything happened for a reason, but it wasn't the sort of thought that was comforting at times like these. 

Mulder was giggling and coughing and Alex couldn't see a goddamn thing. Screams of the dead and dying. Fire everywhere he looked. And he knew damned well Mulder had seen whoever set the bomb.

"Were you trying to kill us both, Mulder?"

"C'mon, you know it takes more than that--"

"Not if we don't get out of this motherfucking *fire*!"

The smile was lurid in the dimness. And then Mulder disappeared into the smoke.

There was a crash off to his left that resolved itself into a large portion of the roof falling in, providing a crumbling ramp to the outside. They'd be able to get out if he could get Mulder back here before any more structural integrity was lost. The next several minutes weren't among the nastiest he'd ever survived, but that was only because of the chaos. 

There was nothing quite like being able to reach out and silence some dumb bitch's hysterical screams with a shamelessly messy bite. Even if he was seen later no one would question the blood. The machine was fed. The woman would burn. 

Alex continued through the murk, narrowly avoiding falling through the floor in several places, or being hit by falling, burning rubble in several others. He was just plotting out phase four of his plan to get back at Mulder for putting him through this when he heard a very distinct sort of moan.

Around a faux marble pillar with a large, widening crack down the center, and there was Mulder. Jerking Jaime off while feeding on the man. He reminded himself that getting his lover to hunt *had* been part of the evening's agenda, took a deep breath and waited for him to finish. He wished he trusted the pillar enough to lean casually against it. This was one of those moments that called for a good sprawl. 

Jaime's moans were quieting to a whisper of air, the instinctive buck of the hips slowing. Didn't look like he'd make it before Mulder--

And there was that crack. Alex never had figured out why Mulder always snapped their necks after draining them. Seemed rather redundant... even if it did put a certain finality on the whole encounter. Mulder tossed the body toward one of the creeping blazes -- creeping much too fast, really.

"Are you ready to leave, yet?"

Challenging look. "I wasn't the one who wanted a night on the town, Alex."

He moved close to Mulder and offered his own face for cleaning. Mulder immediately obliged. Slow, careless laps that made it to his mouth far sooner than was efficient. Mulder was most probably still hungry... but had developed other priorities. 

"We could stay.... Look down there."

Alex let his gaze follow Mulder's finger. The bomb had turned most of Penney's into a smoking crater. On the far side of it a figure -- difficult to classify beyond that --was scrabbling for purchase. It was clear the floor had very recently failed for the individual. It failed a little more while Alex watched and the person was flailing and screaming on the way down. 

"Our own little slice of Hell on earth?"

Briefly promising bite to his nape and Mulder was whispering in his ear.

"Like you said, Alex.... How often *does* the outside world match my mind?"

The incipient caress was tempting, but Alex had serious doubts as to whether they'd make it out of this place if they stayed much longer. He pulled away, turned to face the other man again. 

"C'mon, Mulder. I want to go home. And I want..." Calculated smile and Alex turned away. Did his best to saunter though there was the debris to be considered. He knew Mulder was behind him. 

******

They didn't make it back to the house until nearly four... the road had been a clutter of emergency vehicles and cop cars. The fact they made it out on their own power was suspicious enough, and there were at least 4 random checkpoints on the road back. Mulder wondered aloud where all the security had been beforehand, Alex just smirked. 

Even with all the windows rolled down they reeked heavily of smoke and blood. The latter was more than fine for Alex; the former made him twitch. Mulder was infuriatingly well-behaved in the passenger seat the entire ride home.

Alex headed straight for the bathroom, Mulder followed. Spun him around, slammed him against the door and kissed him hard. The towel rack did nothing to improve his mood. He pushed Mulder off and began stripping -- getting rid of the stench was really his number one priority. Mulder looked ready to pounce but turned away, instead. Turned the water on in the shower and tested it. Smiled over his shoulder at Alex before tearing at his own clothes with ruthless abandon. 

"Planning on joining me?" "Was there ever any doubt?"

Anger flared again. "I don't *know*, Mulder. You seemed to be enjoying our little field trip to the Inferno--"

"I remember, I remember. Fire is bad, fire is wrong--" 

Alex started to say something else, but Mulder moved close again, dropped to his knees. Bit Alex on the thigh once, quickly. Brief suckle made him gasp before Mulder stood again.

"I also remember your saying something about style and originality..."

"Mulder--"

"You have to admit, malls *need* bombing."

"Not while we're--"

Mulder took his mouth, then, and walked them into the shower. Darkness and haze, but this was steam and hot water and the bracing scent of the soap. Mulder washed them both thoroughly, while managing to keep Alex pressed against the wall with a series of bites and kisses. 

Some time later Alex became aware that the water was freezing... but Mulder was still kissing him. He thought about letting the other man play his own game, decided he'd really rather just get fucked. He reached between them and took hold of Mulder's cock, hard and pulsing, a glimmer of heat remaining despite the shower and their nature. Jaime probably hadn't been Mulder's only kill that night, after all. The thought made him smile.

"Bedroom."

All things considered, the night had been a success.

~~~~  
End.  
~~~~

End Note: This was written in response to torch's "Mulder and Krycek shop for curtains" challenge.

 

* * *

 

A Love of Dead Things VII: Time  
by Te  
5/98  
Disclaimers: Still not mine, but I'm being awful good this year.  
Spoilers: Just whose fic do you think you're *reading*?  
Ratings Note: R for language, violence, and some... stuff.   
Archiving Information: Ask first.  
Author's Note: Another day, another challenge. I sincerely doubt you expected this when you made it, though, Alicia. Also, this is a possible sequel to a work-in-progress. Of course, I wouldn't be posting this if it couldn't be read alone.  
Acknowledgments: For Sister Blue, 'cause you're the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. Thanks go to Alicia for suffering the trial that is beta reading for me, as well as to CiCi and Dawn for many helpful comments and encouragements.  
Please send any and all feedback to .

* * *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Time  
by Te  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just as the grave reached the mandatory minimum depth of three feet his trowel broke. Alex would have to cover the body by hand. It was a sign, he supposed. Yet more proof that it

//was a failure//

was time to change tactics. Alex shuddered minutely in the rain, not at all amused by the irony of the fact that he only felt its chill with the flush of the kill fresh on his skin. He watched incuriously as the 

//pissing//

rain cut moon bright tracks through the spatters of mud that had accumulated on the pale flesh of his victim while he dug. 

Another problem. A "warm" winter in northern Massachusetts meant there had been weeks of this rain, and the Rules forbade the collection of any of the effects of a

//happy this one had been happy to see me... even happier when he found out the truth...//

meal in one's chosen lair -- even if only until they dried to a burnable state. Mr. Francis P. Humboldt, late of Pittsfield, would simply have to be buried in his clothes. 

Despite having taken the precaution of severing 

//Please, Alex... call me//

Frankie's head clear from his body to hide any suspicious marks, it was a worrisome thing. Should the rain continue (as it was showing every sign of wanting to do), it was entirely possible that the earth would shift enough to make for a far too early discovery of the body. There was nothing for it. Alex would *have* to take the wallet, the earrings. He would have to

//I don't care what you do, boy, so long as you//

do what was necessary. He pulled out his machete. The thuds of metal on cold meat, the tink tink of wood on bone and enamel... nonsensical sounds that did little, really, to break up the numbing monotony of watery patters. It was all very depressing, and he knew there would be little comfort at home. 

******

The cabin was just outside of Bennington, all weather-proofed decks and artfully landscaped grounds. All but useless and disturbingly barren this time of year, of course, and the Realtor had seemed more shocked that the two men wanted to rent the place than he had at their stubborn refusal to set an appointment before 6 p.m. In the end, however, the papers had been signed and the house was theirs for six months. Alex stood on the side deck for several moments in a futile attempt to

//avoid the inevitable//

allow Mother Nature to wash the worst of the mud from his body. Mulder had the fireplace lit. Again. Another argument Alex had hastily conceded when 

//I need it, damn you! I'm so damn cold all the time and it's *your* fault...//

*that* look had stolen over his lover's eyes...

Flare of gold in 

//Always and forever...//

moonlight, deceptive, a lie of wildness and vitality that he'd fallen in love with that First Night they'd been together, blood black tacky on their lips in the glare of hopelessly banal neon... salt and copper no, that was wrong, it was iron old and strong and true but it hadn't lasted long before he knew what it truly portended... useless, and now, two years later, near constant despair. 

Alex watched the pungent smoke spiral raggedly into the blankly grey sky. The rain was too weak to be satisfying, and it sliced the ephemeral elegance of the plume to tatters, but as a drop slid down the crevice between nose and cheekbone he decided that the illusion of tears was fitting. He was well and truly sodden, though, and after another several minutes he went inside.

Mulder was in his usual place, a bare three feet from the

//Listen and well, Alexei, this is the most important of the Rules: There are still a number of things that can kill you in this world but only this can make it *hurt*. //

fire, humped and muddled beneath a pile of quilts. Alex knew he had to be uncomfortable, but had long since given up on reasoning with the man. In the old days

//It wasn't supposed to be like this...//

simple misdirection had worked. Shamelessly bad jokes, the most bizarre seductions 

//Always young, always *strong,* dammit...//

he could come up with... diversions like that night at the porn theater

gorging, glutting themselves on the desperate and perverse and oh it was even better when they were dirty and strange hints and images of petty sins committed in sweaty abasements to Asmodeus and if they were hard as diamond some freakish negative of obsidian at the dark little fantasies of sons and daughters taut and

//so precious...//

constrained swallowed down with the life the blood well, weren't they doing a public service? 

Alex shook off his thoughts and gazed at his companion again. He hadn't moved or done anything to acknowledge Alex's presence. 

"I'm going to take a shower." 

Silence.

"Care to join me?"

//C'mon, remember the bathtub at least...//

"It won't work, Alex. You know we'll never be clean again."

//Christ, not *this* again.//

"Mulder... Mulder, I didn't force this on you. You asked --*begged*-- me for it. It's too fuck--"

The older man didn't bother to turn. "Fucking late for guilt. For you, maybe. You ought to know by now that it's never too late for me, *Alex.*"

"Oh, of *course* not. Not for you. Poor Saint Fox, sins of the whole wide world on your shoulders. Well I'm fucking sick of it, Mulder. Guilt I could handle. That much I expected from you. But I've been thinking--"

"Did it hurt?"

"Shut the fuck up. Just be quiet for a little while and listen 

//And well.//

while I break a few things down for you. You're quite good at it, after all, giving me your back night after goddamn ni--"

"Just say it, damn you!"

Alex closed his mouth abruptly, long since accustomed to the lack of a click and absentmindedly lapping the two small drops of blood from his lower lip. He *had* been babbling, he supposed.

"Fine. Here it is. You had made your decision long before you tracked me down that night. Sometimes I think you'd made it years before we ever met. If you ever got a chance, a *real* chance for... power, maybe? Or just to leave the world behind?"

No answer.

"Whatever. If you ever got the chance you would take it, no questions asked. And so you did. And it was sweet in the beginning, Mulder. You can't tell me it wasn't. We gave each other *all* of each other that night and again and again after that whenever--"

"Just get to the point, Alex."

//So tired... we don't have to be like this...//

"Just let me finish, will you?"

A

//Impatient? Uncomfortable?//

shift under the blankets was Alex's only answer.

"Taking Them out. One by one. Quick or slow, however you wanted and I watched you smile, Mulder. I know, dammit I *know* you were happy. But then it changed. You stopped laughing and I called it boredom. Stopped hunting and I blamed fatigue and I brought you victims. I did everything I could to make you happy again and..."

Late August and he'd passed by a puppy farm. Hadn't fed and it was a maddening buzz under the flesh but he'd seen them. Twin Akitas. Pure black... winsome and fine in the West Virginia starlight bounding and yipping and tumbling and he'd demanded the breeder let him buy them Right Now. Bram and Camilla. Ludicrous perfection in silken fur...

"And sometimes it

//worked for a while... until you just plain stopped feeding...//

worked. That's how I know it wasn't really guilt,

//You were lean... bones showing through, veins sickly blue even in the dimmest light. I'd decided to let you starve the ennui out of your system,//

Mulder. If it was I would've seen it earlier. We wouldn't have had the good times..."

//too late too late I could hear the whimpered screams too damn human but not enough for me to drown them out as irrelevant as meat for the beast and there was... matter... all over our beautiful little apartment and Camilla was trying to kick but you had her by the throat... worrying...// 

The memory was still powerful. Still shocking, foul, despite the passage of time. Alex had loved them in his way. But, as with everything unpleasant, it had its uses. It hardened him.

"And, really, that's what pisses me off, Mulder. The fact that you would cloak yourself in this lying, *puling* imitation of shame. Don't you at least have the good fucking grace to tell me what's really wrong?"

He didn't really expect anything like a real answer, but the insult had the desired effect of getting the man to *move*. And he quickly regretted it. Mulder stood and shrugged off the blankets, revealing the black jeans and t-shirt he'd been wearing for far too many days. Then he turned. The hours before the fire had left his 

//beautiful...//

face blistering and burnt, not the red of healthy, living flesh, but charred.

"Oh Christ, Mulder, why do--"

"You wanted to know why, Alex? I miss the sun. Plain and simple. I. Miss. The. Sun."

Alex couldn't help but snort a little at the thought.

"Do you really expect me to believe this... *this* is all over some hot fucking ball in the sky? It's not like you were ever a sand- between-your-toes kinda guy, Mulder. Wha--"

"That's just it, Alex. Regret." 

Alex watched the other man raise too-thin hands to his face, wincing a little in sympathy at the sharp hiss of pain as fingertips brushed new scars. The blood would heal it but... He schooled his voice to gentleness.

"Why?"

"It's that hoary old cliche. You never know what you have until you lose it. And it's gone. I'll never watch that play of light and shadow under a dogwood in May. Never sweat in July." He snorted without amusement and plucked a bit of skin from his cheek. "Never get a fucking tan."

It was flippant, but Alex could hear the truth behind the self-mockery. He remembered those two short weeks between finals and graduation. Beautiful weather and all you needed to make the day perfect were a keg, a hibachi, and "Cinnamon Girl" on the stereo. And the late afternoon sunlight was *just* that shade of burnished gold and the world was right. Could it... 

"Don't say never, Mulder. You... I've heard rumors. Old ones. Powerful enough to face the dawn..."

Alex watched the hazel eyes narrow in suspicion, but, so far as he knew, he was telling the truth.

"We can have forever, Mulder. But we'll have change as well, don't you see? We just have to be..."

//strong//

"... a little patient. Can you do that with me? For me?"

Alex walked slowly, carefully to his lover and bared his own throat.

"Please, Mulder. We have all the time in the world..."

He closed his eyes. And waited. A soft brush of lips and the ghost of tears that really would never, could never, be shed again. And when the pain came it was beautiful, and oh, so right.

End

*****

Note: The challenge in question? I had mentioned offhand that I couldn't really see the fellas doing something as normal and benign as adopting a puppy. Alicia challenged me to write a scenario where it happened. Here ya go, babe. 

 

* * *

 

A Love of Dead Things VIII: Taedium Vitae  
by Te  
9/98  
Disclaimers: Mulder and Alex aren't mine, dammit, but my mama says I'm old enough for my wants not to hurt me. Sigh. Anatoly's mine, though.  
Spoilers: None. At all.  
Ratings Note: Weak R for language, some violence, and vaguely sexual references.  
Summary: Mulder has a conversation.  
Author's Note: Another moment from my _A Love of Dead Things_ universe. In chronological order:  
     Freeze  
     This Night  
     Never So Alive  
     The Idea of Forever  
     And No Other  
     Evil Eye  
     Time  
     Taedium Vitae

I'd love it if you read everything I wrote, but I think only "Freeze," "This Night," "And No Other," and "Time" are necessary pre-reading for this one.  
Acknowledgments: Massive amounts of love for Dawn Sharon, who took my bitching and moaning about this series and poked and prodded until I made it into a story. To the marvelous Alicia, earning her status as Prime Beta yet *again* with patient, relentless, and obsessive attention to this story. Thanks also go to Pretty Pretty Pares for the title and to her and Dreamer for many helpful suggestions. And, of course, to my sweetness and dark, my Sister Blue. All remaining errors and ambiguities are, as always, entirely my own fault.  
Feedback: Please, please, please.

* * *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Taedium Vitae  
by Te  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mulder stood before the fireplace. The basalt was dark with old ash and smoke, the interior filled with wood in varying stages of char. The scent made him hungry for that approximation of oblivion he'd found here, night after night, for months.

But he'd promised to try.

He plucked at the sleeves of the shirt, smoothed the old jeans. This was part of trying. Clean, neat appearance. Make yourself ready to get out and -- Lord help us all --interact with the outside world. Get some exercise. Mulder wondered how well an attempt to get some sun would go over. 

And Alex... Alex was so damned easy to please. Hunt, snark, maybe smile and the younger man would grin like a twelve year old. Sometimes it felt like Alex was one bitten lip from blurting out something along the lines of "There, now that wasn't so hard, was it?" No good could possibly come out of answering a question like that.

But he'd promised to try. The fireplace would be dark tonight, and just as cold as he was. 

Wash of soap-smell and steam announced Alex's presence. He was always there, really. A subtle pressure at the base of the spine. A voice at his ear.

"What can I do?"

Always, always the unspoken 'beloved.' Mulder wondered if Alex counted the number of times he used the word, allowed himself a quota of them per day.

"Mulder? Talk to me. Please."

An arm around his waist, the whisper of warmth from the shower settling against his back...

"Nothing, Alex. Just... just leave me alone for now, OK?"

Mulder felt a slight stiffening, but Alex still planted a soft kiss on his shoulder before moving away. 

*****

"Anatoly."

"Hmm...?" His own instinctive response snapped Mulder back to himself. Still life in black jeans, arms firmly wrapped around his own torso. His body language made him ill. 

"I told you about him, Mulder. He's the one who... who made me. Trained me. He's coming."

He turned to find Alex half in and half out of the stubbornly pristine armchair, book tossed carelessly to the floor, expression a sort of dreamy excitement. "Why?"

Small, brief frown, but Alex's eyes were far away. "I don't know... I haven't seen him since I left Russia."

Mulder made his tone light. "Is he coming to take you back?"

A grin. "Or kill me for the mess I made of his club before I left... I never told you about that?"

"No." 

"Oh... long story. There was this nosy cop, and too many fucking candles and--"

The low purr of an expensive engine in the driveway cut him off. Alex was immediately out of the chair and out of the house. Mulder watched at the window. Anatoly was a little shorter than Alex, black hair and curiously light eyes. Dark, travel rumpled suit. He took Alex in his arms and held him close, moon-bright smile very clear at this distance. When they pulled apart, though, Anatoly's expression darkened almost immediately. He shot a glance toward Mulder and tugged a mostly unresisting Alex into the car.

It was impossible to believe they were talking about anything but him. Mulder left the window and went around back to the deck. Settled himself in one of the low-slung patio chairs and waited. The next thing he was aware of was an iron hand around his throat, a marked lack of floor under his feet, and the relentlessly even dig of the aluminum siding into his spine.

"I take it you've come to kill me?"

His voice was a low and unfamiliar whistle. It had been a long time since anyone had been able to overpower him.

"Right now it seems like an excellent idea, Mulder." 

Anatoly's tone was a bright tenor, though the accent was mostly undefinable.

"Finish it, then. I'm tired of this."

Mulder immediately found himself tossed with bruising force back into his chair. He landed with a thump that sent the thing -- and him in it -- reeling dangerously close to the edge of the deck. Anatoly dragged one of the other chairs to a point opposite Mulder and perched. 

"Could you stop posturing for just *one* moment? Do you really think you're the only vampire to suffer from depression?" Mulder opened his mouth to speak, but Anatoly just barreled on. "Let me see if I've got this right: 'Oh, I shouldn't be enjoying myself so much, oh I'm killing so many people...' Blah blah blah. Get over it. If it wasn't you it would be AIDS. A car crash. Or, God help them, *old age*."

"Wha--"

"People die every day without doing a damn thing with it. Useless deaths. Your victims... at least they're dying for a *reason*."

"Keeping me alive to kill more people?"

"Well, I didn't say it was a *good* reason."

"This is pointless. You're not taking me seriously--"

"And why should I?"

"Were you even going to kill me at all?"

"Mulder, Mulder, Mulder! You're not a person, you're an archetype."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I mean, You're the attractively suffering vampire. You're an intelligent young man; doesn't that grate a little against your sense of originality?"

Mulder was silent for a moment, took the time to settle himself more comfortably in the chair. "You know, I can see how Alex fell for you--"

"You're assuming he had a choice."

"Wha--"

"Nothing, it doesn't matter." Mulder twitched internally at the interruption. "Look, I know what you're going to say. You think I'm ignoring some fundamental truth, don't you?"

Mulder settled back in his chair, eyed the man speculatively. "Yes. You are. We're killing people. Lots of them. Every day. That can't ever be right."

"So what does right have to do with anything, Mulder? You're not God."

"Oh, we're going to discuss religion, now?"

"If you'd like. I've spent a lot of time in monasteries..."

"Is there a joke to follow that?"

"Not really. Let's just say they're wonderful places to decompress after a relationship with someone like you."

"The abuse can stop any time, you know."

"Can it? Seems to me it's been going on for quite a while."

"So this is about Alex?"

"I care about Alexei deeply, true. But this is only about him insofar as it relates to his feelings about you."

"Killer, theologian, roving Immortal Relationship Counselor?"

"Again, Mulder, if you'd like. I'd say you were lucky I found this sort of behavior charming, but then you're still of the opinion that you want to die."

"Are you going to tell me what I want and don't want?" He was only a little surprised by the low, dangerous quality of his own voice.

"If I wanted to, I could make you believe you desperately needed to tear your mother to shreds."

"Are you suggesting I let you give me some sort of... of moral lobotomy?"

"Perhaps I haven't been clear. You allow me *nothing*."

Mulder just stared until Anatoly caught the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. 

"I'm sorry, Mulder. That was rude of me. I only wish to talk."

"What you *want* is to make me see the world the way you do, Anatoly."

"Well, isn't that what all discussion is about? The attempt, with varying degrees of politesse, to bring another person around? Oh, we can call it all sorts of high-handed things, sharing ideas, whatever. In the end, we all want to be right."

"I may be young compared to you, but I'm not a child."

"I know, I'm sorry... I'm afraid I've spent much of this past century being rather pedantic."

"Comes with the territory, I suppose. Look, the point is that I spent my life hunting, fighting, and kill--"

"Your life is over."

"If that's true, why can't I just be dead?"

Mulder watched the way the corners of Anatoly's mouth tightened as he gathered his thoughts. It was a forcible reminder of Alex, but the sound of the other man's voice was an inescapable tug to the present.

"Answer me this: Would you have been able to catch the monsters if you thought of them as monsters?"

"Touche. Profilers learn to know them, to empathize... But that doesn't change the fact that we're doing all those things for the purpose of *stopping* them."

"And you were never... intrigued?"

"Of course I was; I wouldn't have been human if I wasn't. That's not the point. Those people had decided to view the rest of the human race as something Other, and preyed on them. They needed to be stopped."

"Because there are rules?"

"You make it sound so... artificial. How can you do that? Was it a conscious decision? You were mortal once, yourself."

"Yes, I was. I'm not any longer, and neither are you and Alex. But profile me, Mulder. What do you see?"

Mulder paused for a moment, looked up at the night sky. There were nuances to the indigo he'd missed while alive. There were sounds he hadn't known. There was little joy in knowing these things -- at least, none that lasted for very long. He looked at Anatoly again.

"You decided when you were very young that there had to be more to life than what you were living. You decided you were better than... whoever was around you. It wasn't arrogance, just simple truth. You never, ever lied to yourself. That was the coping mechanism of the weak. 

"Of course, all these decisions just made it easier to distance yourself from the rest of the species. Were you a soldier? Maybe. Not unless there was some chance for you to rise through the ranks, though. You'd never have been able to stomach taking orders from anyone who lacked your own... worth.

"If you did kill before whatever happened to make you a vampire occurred--"

Mulder broke off at a very loud eyebrow quirk from Anatoly, and shifted a bit in his chair before continuing.

"If you did kill, you probably made a point of getting over it quickly. Because you were just doing what was necessary, therefore you had no right to feel bad about it. Weak and silly to do otherwise.

"However, unless you're a biological devoid, the natural impulses against taking the life of one of your own had to be going *somewhere*. And that's what I don't understand. You quite obviously care about Alex. You've hinted there were others. Why doesn't the rest of the human race count?

"Or, how am I supposed to believe in the reality of those feelings you claim? It certainly seems more logical for you to have simply convinced yourself -- people like you are good at that -- that you were the sort of person who *should* care for a certain other sort of person."

There was a silence. At last, Mulder said, "I apologize. You can understand that I'm taking these things... personally."

A nod. "One of the things I pride myself on is the ability to hear the truth about myself, of course." Anatoly smiled wryly before continuing, "But you're missing the point, too."

"Enlighten me. I'm not in the habit of asking questions just to hear myself talk. Anymore."

"Well, first tell me this: What 'natural impulses' are you talking about? The only members of our 'own kind' we don't automatically try to kill -- without conditioning -- are those we recognize as blood kin, and those we're looking to screw."

"I take it you don't subscribe to the theory that every man is your brother."

"It just doesn't *work* that way. You know that as well as I do."

"Rules, conditioning. You certainly know how to push my buttons."

"I've had a few years to practice."

Mulder snorted. "The point is, sometimes chaos is wrong. It's all well and good to have an open mind and take nature as it comes... But I've killed, and if I'm not stopped I'll kill again."

"So why haven't you stopped yourself? You're the monster-killer, after all. Why does there have to be all this... this *melodrama*?"

"Stop making such a fuss over my life and death?"

"You're archetyping again."

"Sorry, I guess I've just needed to get this out."

"Understandable. But..."

"Why haven't I killed myself?"

"Yes."

"Because I'm a coward?"

"Is that your answer?"

"Yes. No. I'm really not sure... I have to admit, I haven't gone into this very deeply."

"Why not?"

"Because my mother was weak and my father an alcoholic abuser, doctor."

"Come, come, Mulder. Turnabout's fair play, isn't it?"

"When did this get to be about fairness? Remember, all the dead people?"

"This is about you, right now, Mulder. And all the dead people. If you're so sickened by yourself why didn't you just snap Alex's neck one night after fucking him and creep up to the roof to wait for dawn? Throw yourself in a fireplace -- I noticed you have a large one -- and go up the chimney?"

"I thought we'd already established that I didn't know." 

"But we've also established that you're a brilliant profiler. How hard can it be?"

"Some of us are fonder of self-deceit than others."

"The very fact you could *say* that puts the lie to it, Mulder."

"That sounds like a word puzzle--"

"Stop fucking around."

"Tell me this: What *is* this existence about, then? We're not alive, we're not dead, we kill again and again..."

"I'm more alive than the vast majority of those people you claim to be so worried about."

"And that makes you superior?"

"No, but it certainly makes me feel that way. You make it too easy to skate around on the surface of things. Where was I?"

"I believe we were studiously not talking about why I haven't just offed myself."

"This is the point where Alexei flings himself at you, isn't it?"

"Lord, that point passed *hours* ago."

Anatoly laughed then, and the sound was clean, nearly simple.

"I do want to answer your question, Mulder. But it's hard not to sound like a bad musical number when you're talking about the meaning of life."

"And if you're depressed you wind up sounding like bad industrial."

"I'll take your word on that."

"I'm really not an idiot; I know what you're trying to say... Christ, Alex finds a new way to say it every fucking day. 'We've got this new life, and it's very beautiful, and even the ugly parts have their own internal loveliness, so why can't you just settle back and enjoy it? And could you please eat more? I worry.'"

"And of course it bothers you that he worries."

Silence.

"Don't look at me that way. Don't you think it's time you talked about some of these things?"

"Nobody likes a touchy-feely vampire."

"All right, all right. You don't want to talk about this. How did you wind up with Alexei anyway?"

"You couldn't just ask an easy question?"

"It's against the rules for touchy-feely vampires."

Mulder snorted, put his head in his hands for a moment. "He would've gone with you anyway, you know. You didn't have to... have to do whatever it is you did."

"That worries you, does it? You wonder if I took him against his will. Raped him."

"Well, you hinted at that very thing earlier. I've gotten the impression you don't do that very much unless it's important. Lay it out in a breadcrumb trail for the contrary sonofabitch, right? Too obvious and he'll only curl his lip and walk away?"

"It only arouses me when you show those flashes of self-awareness, Mulder."

Mulder chose to ignore the tease. "Why didn't he have a choice? What did you do to him?"

"Two very different questions... He didn't have a choice because he walked right into our -- Natalia, Josef, and my -- literal parlor, and he was very beautiful, and very deceitful, and he reminded us too much of ourselves..." He pursed his lips for a brief moment before catching Mulder's gaze again. "Just under the surface was both pain and predator. Your eyes are far away. It sounds quite familiar, doesn't it?"

Dismissive gesture. "Of course it does. Did.... Did you hurt him?"

"Perhaps a little more than he hurt you." A look that forced Mulder to acknowledge the foolishness of the question. "It *is* in his nature to struggle..." Small, private smile. "He didn't know us, after all."

Mulder winced. "Where is he now?"

"I sent him hunting."

"You *sent* him hunting?"

A chuckle. "Well, I promised him I wouldn't kill you unless it was *absolutely* necessary." 

"It doesn't seem right for him to be missing this."

"Yes, all this honesty. Heaven forbid you actually tell *him* any of this."

"You're just getting bitchier as the night rolls on, you know."

"Yes, I know. I've been told it's a good look on me."

Mulder restrained the urge to roll his eyes. "Where were we?"

"I believe you were going to tell me how you wound up with Alexei in the first place."

"I... I'm not entirely sure. There were killings, and disappearances, and I saw Alex at one of the scenes. I followed him--" Mulder cut himself off with a snort. "I suppose he *let* me follow him. Wanted to know what I would do."

"And what did you do?"

"I stopped lying to myself a little bit.... He kissed me." Mulder shook his head. "You know, that's the problem. 'Honesty' was a lot easier when it went hand in hand with self-denial."

"Well... that's interesting. What *was* your religious upbringing, Mulder?" 

"Vague. Vaguely Jewish, vaguely Presbyterian, vaguely designed to make me grow up feeling *distinctly* guilty about not doing everything and anything to be a Valuable Member of Society."

"And, of course, you know exactly what that did to you, and even the slightest quirk of my eyebrow would be an insult. You know, we're not all that different, Mulder."

Mulder sighed, leaned back in his chair. "No, we're not. We're both relentlessly self-aware enough to believe we're entitled to the assorted neuroses, psychoses, and pathologies that we know full well we suffer from."

A nod. "After all, once you know it's there it can't *really* cause problems. You just smack it down when it starts becoming... visible."

"Well... Hmm."

"Yes?"

"You're right.... It's how I lived my life. They don't let people carry a gun if they can't play it straight." A dry sound of amusement. "Well, mostly."

"I did pick up your problems with authority figures."

"After only one visit, doctor?"

Anatoly snorted quietly. "Sorry. I'll do my best to be as thick as I possibly can, lest you get the impression I understand you *too* much."

"This is the point where Alex flings himself at you, isn't it?"

"No, I've long since carted him off to bed. Or floor."

"Do you really think fling is the right word? I've always considered it more of a pounce. Maybe a swoop." Musingly. 

"You're right. Though sometimes he gets that exasperated look, like he wishes he had a giant slingshot to attach himself to."

Mulder threw his head back and chortled. "You know, he's right. It really should be enough. And I can come up with dozens of reasons why it isn't, but all of it.... It's an opportunistic sort of thing, I think. It's not enough because it's not enough, but look at how well I make my case."

Anatoly nodded, waited for Mulder to continue. 

"The self-denial... I could tell myself I wanted him, and I could tell myself it was wrong for any number of reasons, and I could tell myself I *still* wanted him -- I was very honest about it, and proud -- and I could point out how giving in to it would ruin the Work. And *then* I could deny myself his touch. I remember how he smelled, how much I wanted to just..."

"I hope you appreciate my not pointing out all the things you're not saying."

"I do, oh, I do. I know it must be hard."

"I'm willing to make these sacrifices."

Mulder scrubbed his face with his hands. "When he kissed me a lot of things changed. It's always easier to say no when you don't know what it'll be like to surrender."

"And Alex was too busy flinging himself to hear all the 'no's you weren't saying."

"It should have been obvious to him that this was a... a lifestyle I couldn't handle."

"And it should be obvious to you that we're absolutely *clueless* about people like you, sometimes..."

"What about that superiority thing?"

"No, this falls under the 'I'm allowed to be obtuse because I know it' clause."

"Couldn't we just be having meaningless sex?"

"That would be *much* too easy. Besides, I like hearing you talk about Alexei."

"Alex."

A smile. "As you wish."

"All right. You know everything there is to know about yourself and how to push my buttons, besides. So how come you don't know what a bad idea it is to make people like me vampires?"

"Oh, did I say I didn't know that? No, we're fully aware of the dangers in turning people like you. There's even a Rule, of sorts."

"Ah, yes. The Rules. How *did* you teach Alex to speak in capitals so easily, anyway?"

"You're still worried about what we did to him? Do you think he wouldn't love you so much if I hadn't *done* something to him?"

"You're being too direct again."

"Isn't it getting a little late to play these games?"

"Tell me the Rule."

"Fuck them, eat them, move on."

"That's... that's practical."

Anatoly nodded slowly and somewhat dreamily. "Of course, there wouldn't be a Rule if we were always so practical..."

"Is that anything like the detailed instructions on toothpick packages?"

One eyebrow arched. "Something else I'll have to take your word on."

"Culture lag must be a bitch."

"You get used to it."

Mildly uncomfortable silence. "What happened to your archetypes?"

"I killed the first, at her own request. The second killed himself. The third disappeared... I know he's still alive, I can feel him, but he won't let me get close... Do you need to know more?"

"You're not making a very good case."

"You're the one so wrapped up in the beauty of the individual."

"You loved them, though."

"I never would have made them like me if I didn't. How could you expect Alex to watch you grow old, sick, weak?"

A vaguely tired gesture. "That's exactly what he was supposed to be able to do. Or, barring that, kill me."

"Because that's what monsters do. Sorry, monsters are also stupid."

"You know I don't think of you that way, don't you?"

"Yes. I also know you desperately wish you could."

Mulder tried to catch the other man's gaze, but the moonlight made the blue eyes gleam too flatly. He felt his own mouth twist a bit. "And your next question is: Since I can't seem to kill myself, or leave, why haven't I flat out asked Alex to kill me. Especially since I know that, like you, he's an idiot about people like me and needs to be led."

"I was actually feeling rather whimsical. It seemed like a good time to ask if you'd like to suck me. You could, of course, take that any way you wish."

"Liar."

"Yes. Though I wouldn't object..."

"Strenuously."

"Right."

"I haven't asked Alex because that would be admitting total surrender. I haven't asked Alex because I don't trust him to do it, and... and he's done everything I've asked of him. It would be a failure for both of us, and ruin the good we do have. I haven't asked Alex because I'm terrified he would do it, and move on, and be happy with someone else. I haven't asked Alex because... because I know exactly how much it would hurt him."

"Alexei--"

"Alex."

"Alex didn't call me here, you know."

Silence.

"Come on, Mulder, this is *Alex* we're talking about."

"I know, I know. It's an insult to even consider that he'd call someone in to do his dirty work." Twist of the lips. "A man can hope, though."

"He's not supposed to be this good to you, there shouldn't--"

"There shouldn't be positives. I shouldn't be enjoying myself, blah blah, this is right back where we started. Doesn't that tell you anything?"

A long silence as Anatoly visibly rejected several responses before continuing. "It would, of course, confirm every deep-seated belief you have about the rest of humanity -- and otherwise -- if I just nodded my head, came over there and killed you.

"Tell me, Mulder, how are my methods of distancing myself from my former species so different from yours?"

"Other than the fact I leave them alive?"

"Do you?"

"Since when do you have the right to argue about the emotional health of a species you look at as talking food?"

"This isn't about how *I* see them, Mulder."

"All right, so I suck people dry and then have the temerity to expect them to live on and suffer -- if I even bother to consider what I've done to them. I'm also a coward--"

"You're archetyping again."

"Well, there's a *reason* it's an archetype."

"Where *is* Alex, anyway? I'm strong enough to fling him at you properly." 

Short bark of laughter. "That's also the point, isn't it? That he fixes things. Or that he tries to. All the time."

Anatoly nodded, waited for Mulder to continue.

"It only makes it worse, and I know how *wrong* that is, which proceeds to make it even worse, and so on."

"So... you decided that since there was no easy way for you to die that you had to live. Living requires you doing things you don't want to do, so you have to... turn yourself off to a certain extent?"

"Basically. And you have no idea why I can't just reinvent myself, take my Alex-flingings like a man, and move on."

"I didn't turn Alex to see him miserable for eternity, and, no, killing you *wouldn't* make him happy. Think about the holes that still exist in your life -- and none of them were lovers. Or were they?"

Humorless smile. "Some... potential. But this has... limited my options. Can't go around making unsuitable people vampires just because you don't want to say goodbye."

"Touche. Would it make you feel better if I scolded Alexei roundly? Spanked him, maybe?"

"*Alex*."

Anatoly winced. "That was nearly unintentional, Mulder. I'm sorry."

Mulder waved him off distractedly. "I wanted him when he was pretending to be an innocent. I fell in love with him... after. I do love him, I can say it, and I'm desperate to hold on to the part of myself that knows how wrong that is. That can tell you precisely why. What happens if I let go of... of everything?"

"And you don't particularly appreciate my coming here, the implications..."

"I'd be pretty fucking pissed if you ran off with Alex and left me alive."

"Can you give me a good reason not to do just that? I mean, what you're doing to Alex..."

"The emotional lives of soulless predators. No, no, I know that's the point. I still have my soul; I'm not better than you. Or Alex."

"He loves you. You love him. Explain to me why this is so *hard*."

"I already did. This... this rebellion is the last chance I have to pretend to be human."

"But that's specious. You're still you, just without the trappings of a society you never *really* believed in anyway. I swear, I think this making Alex your father thing is really the worst of all of it."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"And when did I get to be a Freudian? Look, this business with *trying* for him." Anatoly's tenor flattened into an eerily accurate impression of Mulder's own. "'Oh, I'll get cleaned up. Oh, I'll stop playing with fire. Oh, I'll go hunting. See what a good boy I am? Look what I do for you!' That isn't love."

Mulder felt himself snarl. A point lost, but the night was growing old. "What do you *want* from me?"

"I want you to live, you self-centered idiot. And that's all Alex wants, too. Don't play stupid with me; we both know *precisely* what makes Alex happiest."

"When I'm happy. Fine. How do you go about being happy, Anatoly? What life lessons have I missed out on?"

"Oh, ask the difficult questions." Anatoly closed his eyes for a moment and Mulder watched them move beneath the pale lids. Restless. "What do you do when he reaches out for you? When he touches your face and comes close enough to murmur in your ear. Do you lean into the touch with anything more than your body?"

"Of course I -- God, is that what I've been saying to you? No, I remember... that's the first thing I remember. After the change. He held me and whispered... I had no clue what he was saying... but I also did. And I remembered. I remember."

"You know I'm resisting the urge to make encouraging noises."

"I know. You can yell at me some more if you'd like."

"No, I've had my fill of that for the time being. But..."

"Tell you why -- with all my talk about natural impulses --I didn't immediately just cleave to Alex. Or even gradually."

"Well, I was thinking the usual. If you did that you'd have to not only admit you love him, but that he loves you. At that point... No, I'll say it -- at *this* point there's no choice but to accept that you belong together and that it's idiocy to fuck around."

"Do you think the Bureau shrinks would get any better if they had 500 years or so to practice?"

Anatoly laughed. "It's entirely possible..."

Mulder settled back in his chair with an audible thump. "Were you ever a lawyer?"

"No, but I've killed hundreds."

Mulder snorted. "What, were you actively *hunting* them? I mean, how many lawyers prowl the night time streets?"

"Well, in the *old* days, if you just crept into their rooms at night and killed them people blamed ghosts. Bogles. Cats."

"'And there was none of this hip hop business either. No, not in my day.'"

"Don't make me hit you."

"Don't tell me Alex made you promise not to do that, either?"

"No, no, it was really just the killing he was worried about. But..."

Mulder turned to face him, then. It seemed abruptly absurd that they remained so far away, in their silly little deck chairs. "But what?" And his voice was too low.

They looked at each other for a long moment, and Mulder was certain he could feel the touch of cool, unfamiliar fingers against his lips, but then--

"I wonder what's keeping Alex."

"Did you send him back down to Maryland? Demand the head of Cal Ripken, Jr.?"

"Well, what does he *usually* do when he hunts?"

"Even when we're together it's usually pretty efficient... Hell, even when we play games it doesn't take *this* long. Are you sure he doesn't expect you to kill me and efficiently dispose of my body and effects?"

"I don't know what he *expects* me to do, but I did promise... Maybe he was expecting you to make it necessary."

"It really is touching that he has so much faith in me."

"In your ability to piss people off."

"Well, yes."

Anatoly stretched a bit. "So..."

"Yeah."

"Good Lord, have we actually reached a lull in the conversation with no deeper meaning at all?"

"It had to happen at some point. This is where Alex and I would be cuddling, by the way."

"Braggart." Anatoly paused, his mouth twisting unpleasantly. "That was rather bitter, wasn't it? I'm sorry, Mulder."

"No... no, it's all right."

"It isn't all right. But I would... I'm not noble. At all. You would, perhaps, do well to remember that."

Mulder nodded.

"I think it's time for me to go. Give... give Alex my best, yes?"

Mulder stood to see him off. Anatoly stayed just long enough to acknowledge the courtesy with a brief nod, and then was gone. Mulder settled back in his chair, gazed up at the sky. The stars were fading, and he knew Alex would   
be home soon.

~~~~~  
End.  
~~~~~

 

* * *

 

A Love of Dead Things IX: For the Season  
by Te  
10/98  
Disclaimers: They belong to people richer and more powerful than I'm ever likely to be.  
Spoilers: There's a vague and tiny one in here for Piper Maru.   
Summary: A few Halloween vignettes.   
Ratings Note: R for implied violence, m/m interaction, and disturbing imagery.  
Acknowledgments: To Pretty Pretty Pares for all-too-necessary pre-stroke.  
Feedback: PLEASE. I'm not kidding. 

* * *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
For the Season  
by Te  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wonder about this holiday, sometimes. I've never found terror in a mask. I've learned not to fear the cold, wet touch of the other. And decay... the shrivel and slough of flesh, the whiteness of bone... There is beauty there, once you know where to look.

There are things that, once learned, can never be forgotten. This is a good thing. A fine thing.

Even if you are softened enough by time and comfort to wish for forgetfulness. 

I look at Mulder and he is happy. Once a year the whole world looks over their shoulders. They laugh, but often there is a real touch of terror in their eyes. Once a year they wonder why the stories are so old and well-known. They remember the worm.

These people, they walk through life with no comprehension of the inevitable. Oh, they say, there's no way the Giants will make it to the playoffs this year. Or maybe just, Bobby is *never* going to speak to me again. And this is how they view fate. This is what they see when they look at the choices they've made -- clearly defined paths, fuzzily defined endings. 

I used to wonder how their worlds could be so narrow. Then I would gloat -- *my* vision was clear. Now... Now I fear. I've seen so much, and I know now that I cannot see all.

I wonder about God. Wonder how long it took before He went insane. A millenium? A week? I cannot curse God anymore. There is so much. Even if He knew, He couldn't have understood.

The world is a fearsome place when you pity God. Perhaps this is what it's all about. Perhaps this is the time of year when the world offers up a larger part of the picture than we could normally digest. 

The masks, as always, are only window-dressing.

*

Grey-brown skeletal trees clawing at the sky and Alex breathed deep. Burning leaves and children. Sugar-sweat. Piping cries. Alex felt himself tightening and the chill wind on his teeth was the best indicator of his mood he'd yet found.

Mulder hated Halloween -- the celebration of the false and depraved. Alex, perhaps predictably, loved it and for once had no reason to regret the fact his lover had refused to hunt with him.

There was nothing quite like watching the world struggle gleefully to make itself more like the vision of his mind he most treasured. Demons walked, witches talked, and all set themselves out to beg without shame. Give me sweetness, give me joy, or I will punish you and yours.

There was a passion to being alone this night, a grace to the solitude of the hunt. All senses clean and the rush and skitter of leaves was both counterpoint and companion. Perhaps he wasn't alone at all. He was proof the dead could walk, after all. 

The thought was a comforting one. Alex wanted a pack to run with, a collection of individuals with a taste for iron and fear and a love for him, as well. There was no shame in this admission. He had an eternity of cold and the company of the dead was better than no company at all...

Even if he feared no one would understand the joy in the crisp snap of a small throat. In the wonder of grief to follow when her body was found after the first thaw. 

//Will I feel it this time?//

Blood and fear, wind and cold. Alex wanted his heart to pound, but the sight of bright color high on his cheeks was more than enough for this night.

*

I'm really quite superstitious. I know it must seem hard to believe. I know it must make people like you feel immeasurably better when you can look at me and smugly assume the torments of the unbeliever, the blasphemer, are my fate.

But I believe. I pray like you. I fear like you. And when the fear grows unbearable I offer worship to the nameless gods you've come to disdain over time. 

The cult of the gun -- The worship is sleek and clean as I can make it, bright flash and the cry of air being rent.

The cult of the night -- I blend and I creep, and my only shadow is what the moon chooses to give.

The cult of the dead -- So silent, but on nights like these the fog is rich and thick with souls unhappy with me. The worship will never appease, but that, too, fits.

I hear you laugh at me. So obvious, you say. So pathetic that he finds his comfort this way. 

It doesn't make me angry anymore. It doesn't make me doubt. Tell me, when you catch me move in the corner of your eye, when an unfamiliar noise makes your heart catch in your throat... Do you laugh then?

******  
End  
******

Note: Virtual back massage with truffle oil to anyone who can guess one or both of the songs I pillaged for these. 

 

* * *

 


End file.
